


Renegade Atlas

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bloodplay, Canon Compliant, Dubious Consent, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Gore, Handprint Kink, Hell, Knifeplay, M/M, Nightmares, Rimming, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 05, Torture, Violence, boys denying they're in love with each other, insane!Dean, thoughts of self-harm/suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:24:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 84,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean did some things down there in the pit, horrible things that haunt him at night and remind him why he deserves to die. The scary part is that despite his best efforts at denial, he truly misses it down there, how he could bring souls to their knees with just a knife and a well-practiced flick of his wrist. But Castiel knows exactly what Dean is - imperfect, human, and beautiful, despite what he did in Hell. He wants to restore Dean to his former glory because that's why he raised him from perdition in the first place. He didn't want to fall in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What a Shame

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, the warnings really don't look that bad when they're spread out over multiple chapters on fanfiction.net where this was originally posted, but here it's like BAM. All hardcore stuff. Anyway, obviously, this is just me posting on a different website to, uh, further my reach as an author or something? I don't know; this site is just easier to browse and find stuff on. This story is complete but for two (or three, if the ending gets super long) chapters, and is mostly canon compliant with tiny tweaks along the way for artistic reasons. Have fun!

At first, the familiar prodding in the back of his consciousness confuses Castiel. He's on a mission with Uriel, and he originally brushes it off as one of his brothers trying to contact him specifically, probably Balthazar poking at him instead of just the usual presence of his brothers in the back of Castiel's consciousness. He doesn't have time for distractions because there's an entire horde of demons he has to watch out for while ensuring the correct information gets back to Heaven so they don't end up stumbling upon the Staff of Moses, at least not until the angels can get to it. He isn't high enough up on the chain of command to know why it's suddenly so important that they start moving possible weapons back to Heaven, but Castiel knows it must be serious. The angels haven't been this busy in thousands of years. There have been five similar missions assigned to him in the past year and a half alone and the importance of that weighs heavily in the back of his mind.

Uriel snickers to himself—he has a tendency to laugh to himself a lot—and lets Castiel in on the joke. It's about a goat and a tree indigenous to northern Russia, with a particularly crude punch line that makes Castiel snort as well, until he stops abruptly as realization washes over him.

Castiel has not received a prayer in a long, long time. There aren't a whole lot of humans looking for guidance or protection from the angel of Thursday, so he is unused to dealing with their pleas for guidance and protection. Hesitantly, he tells Uriel to keep a look out as he calls the prayer to him.

A vaguely familiar voice floods in, saying,  _I know Dean's not the most...religious person. He's not the most moral person on the planet. But look at what he does—he saves people, every day, and he doesn't deserve this. I just—I just want my brother back. Please, God, I know you can help. And I think if anybody knows he hasn't earned this...it's you. Amen._

Castiel starts. It's Sam Winchester, of all people, the infamous abomination with the demonic taint all over him.

"What's wrong?" Uriel asks.

Shaking his head, Castiel says, "I have things I need to attend to after this mission is completed."

It takes three weeks for the Staff to be safely procured and stored away in a weapons locker in Heaven. Sam Winchester prays for his brother every day, but his prayers are starting to lose the certainty and hope the first ones had. The most recent one, the one that worries Castiel the most, is confusing.

_Please, God, help him. I—I'm scared if something doesn't happen soon, he's gonna be gone forever. And you shouldn't_ do  _that to him; he is worth so much more than that. But...at the same time, I'm starting to think you don't care. So I'm going to start trying to get him back myself. Whatever it takes, you know? Ruby says she can help, and I trust that she can even though she's not the most...reliable source. Just...let me know if you guys up there can help._

\---

Dean Winchester was assigned as Castiel's charge on January 24, 1979, at 7:03 p.m. in human time. Michael himself entrusted Dean to Castiel with instructions to watch over him and report at the time of Dean's death.

This is hardly the first human Castiel has watched over since he's been stationed on Earth, but Dean is certainly the most important. He is Michael's vessel, Heaven's greatest tool in defeating Lucifer, and there is nothing about him that Castiel does not know. He has been memorizing Dean Winchester in his entirety since the moment Michael said to Castiel, "One day, brother, you will raise him up from the depths of Hell and put every part of him back together again. I trust you to prepare for that." Castiel hasn't the faintest clue why  _he_  was picked for this task, why it wasn't an archangel or even simply an older, more powerful brother, but he has every intention of carrying it out like a true warrior of heaven.

Castiel taught himself everything. He knows the exact number of freckles scattered across Dean's nose and the difference between those and the similar map spanning his shoulders. He knows the measurement of Dean's skin in meters squared and the precise acute angle at which his legs bend. Dean's calloused hands are as familiar as Castiel's own grace; the number of eyelashes Dean has on each eye is so deeply ingrained in Castiel's mind that he will never forget it. Castiel is ready to build Dean back up again the moment he is told, from the way his middle right toe curls in further than the rest all the way up to the tiny, pockmarked scar on his earlobe from his childhood. He will put Dean back together, stronger, brighter, and  _better_  than before.

Castiel has been away from watching Dean for the series of missions Heaven has been sending him on. He thinks about Dean frequently—it would be rather hard not to, considering the purpose Dean has been put on Earth for. Regardless, Castiel has been busy. He knows, however, that Sam wouldn't be praying for Dean if it were not desperately important.

So when Castiel returns to Heaven, the first thing he does is tell Uriel he cannot take another mission until he has spent a while watching over Dean. Uriel is displeased, but Castiel has been assigned to watch Dean longer than he has been running reconnaissance missions and there isn't much Uriel can say to stop him. Castiel is fully aware of where his responsibilities lay.

However, Dean...Dean is nowhere to be seen when Castiel looks down to Earth, ready to fly off at the first sign of him to find a more convenient place from which to watch him. He's suspiciously absent, and Castiel even spares enough time to check continents outside of North America.

Sam is still there, doing research out of an armful of old books in a library somewhere in western Kentucky. He looks exhausted—Castiel would know, considering spending a lifetime staring at Dean similarly means a lifetime staring at Sam. Dean, though, isn't anywhere in the area.

Castiel swears softly to himself. This is bad. If Dean's not on Earth, there is only one thing that could have happened to him, and that's death.

Castiel knows that Dean lives a dangerous life. He fights all sorts of murderous spirits and monsters that would hardly see killing him as any occurrence out of the ordinary, has about five different, equally dangerous vices, and drives far too fast to be safe. If Dean is dead, Castiel isn't exactly surprised; he definitely had his suspicions when Sam started praying. Nevertheless, he has a job to do, even if it's been put on hold for more immediately pressing matters, and it's time to get back to that job. Castiel shouldn't have stopped watching, though, should have known the instant Dean was pulled through the gates of Hell.

He blames his preoccupation with Dean Winchester for why Balthazar is able to sneak up on him.

"What do you want, Balthazar?" Castiel asks, pulling his mind back from Earth and trying to seem like he had been aware of his brother the entire time.

"You seem unsettled, Cassy," he answers lightly.

Castiel hesitates, but he can feel Balthazar's concern and reassurance brushing up against his grace and he just wants to  _tell_  someone. "Dean Winchester...is dead," he ends up saying.

"Really? And you're not going to Michael about it?" Balthazar says, looking faintly surprised.

Shaking his head, Castiel says, "I was just on my way. Would you like to accompany me?"

"Of course I want to be there when Michael learns he's not the first person you told about this," Balthazar says happily. He's adopted a few too many mannerisms from humans, a vague sense of sadism being one of them, Castiel thinks as he glares at him.

They fly up the mountain of Heaven together, wings brushing in a familiar way that makes Castiel think about how much he has missed this. It has been far too long since Castiel's seen past Heaven's outer edges where the garrisons stationed on Earth arrive to receive their new assignments and depart soon after. Two thousand years, though, hasn't changed the place a bit, and, with his brother at his side, Castiel feels a heady sense of peace wash through him at the sight.

"It's good to be back," Balthazar agrees quietly. "It won't be for long, now, not when Michael hears about Dean Winchester."

Castiel agrees with him silently, freely sharing his thoughts with Balthazar as they land.

Balthazar stares at him for a moment. "Well, look at you, Cassy," he says. "That's a bit of a surprise. Rather unlike you, too, considering you've never been particularly fond of humans in general."

"He is important, Balthazar," Castiel snaps. "You would feel the same."

"But of course," Balthazar murmurs demurely. Castiel wants to explain himself, but there isn't time as the gates in front of them open and Michael stands before them.

Castiel inclines his head out of respect. "I bring news," he says, voice ringing around them with all the power he doesn't normally inflect. "News concerning Dean Winchester."

"Go on," Michael commands him, and Castiel spares a thought to hope that he will not be punished for not watching Dean as closely as he should have been.

He detaches himself from his words, putting on the unaffected air Michael encourages all of the angels to have in matters concerning humans. "He has died. His soul rests in Hell, no doubt being broken as we speak," Castiel reports

And with his wings rising over them, obscuring the Great Temple that lies beyond the highest gates of Heaven, Michael says, "Good."

\---

The first thing Castiel does is find a vessel for his inevitable place among humans and the more tangible part of Hell, and he receives another mission immediately, somewhere in southern Africa where one of Joshua's horns has found its way into Lake Tanganyika. It isn't what he expects and Michael offers no explanation why he is out there and not trying to pull Dean out of Hell.

So he searches through the lake with Balthazar and Hester. It takes nearly three months, as the horn is hidden from them and they instead have to search across every inch of the lake, a hundred feet under it, and all around the shoreline. In the end, it's Hester who actually finds it. Dean has distracted Castiel again, as embarrassing as it is.

Dean's descent into Hell is the one thing Castiel had been assigned to watch for, and now that it's happened, he wants to raise him from it. Castiel wants to do his job.

It's not an exaggeration to say that Castiel has developed an...affinity for Dean. It is a very dim candle to the affection he holds for his brothers, but it's there, even though it barely elevates him above the way Castiel perceives the rest of the human race. Dean is interesting. His soul shines, his heart is pure, and no matter what he says or does, he is truly a good person who only wants to keep his little brother safe. Castiel has to admire all of that about him—so few humans are the same way. He understands the family loyalty, the desire to protect, to save. Dean Winchester is one of a kind, as good as a human could ever probably be, and that is why he needed to go to Hell.

Sam still prays occasionally, angry and troubled.  _So what if he's a drunk? A slut? He saves people, you know; keeps them safe from the monsters you created, and he doesn't deserve to live? Who gave you the right to decide anything about him?_

He's still under the impression that God is hearing his prayers and not Castiel, who gets them by virtue of being the angel assigned to watch over Dean. Sam is starting to annoy Castiel with his blatant blasphemy, and he wants to fly to Sam and remind him that this is how the plan is supposed to go. Then again, Sam probably wouldn't care.

Michael is waiting for him when Castiel returns to the outskirts of Heaven. He looks severe and powerful, every bit the archangel as Castiel shakes his waterlogged wings, still soaked from his second look at the bottom of the lake in case they had possibly missed anything (they hadn't, of course).

"Brother," Castiel says in greeting. Balthazar is shamelessly watching them from the side, his grace alight with curiosity.

"Castiel," Michael says. "It is time. Are you ready?"

Then this is it. This is the beginning of paradise, and he calls his garrison, Uriel, Balthazar, Hester, and Inias, to his side. The end, the start of it all—and the only time Castiel will see past the gates of Hell.

"I'm ready," Castiel says. "We're ready."

The only thing he can think, as his brothers arrive, trust laced across every part of their beings, is that it's truly a shame that the most beautiful human soul Castiel has ever seen had to belong to Dean Winchester.

\---

In his mind, it's Alastair's face that Dean is slowly turning into paper-thin confetti. Every loving flick of his knife carves into Alastair and pulls another bit of him away. And as he screams, Dean moves to the flesh on his neck and then his chest, stomach, all the way down to the tips of his toes. Every bit of flesh is carefully flayed into pieces no bigger than his littlest fingernail, and he flips Alastair over on the table, does the same to his back, and laughs as he screams. Then the acid, the little eyedropper full of lye and water. The part that stings worse on open wounds—Dean knows firsthand that chemical burns are worse than anything fire can do. They're the best part.

"The main event," Alastair hisses in Dean's ear, arm sliding close around his waist.

Back to reality, then, where Dean's actually slowly and painstakingly destroying a middle-aged man named Justin Burrows whose only crime was wanting to save his adopted son from an inoperable brain tumor. He probably should have let the kid die.

"Yes, Dean, back to the present. You can imagine doing all those pretty things to me, baby, but it's never going to happen."

Reality is so much worse, he thinks faintly as he squeezes the eyedropper lightly all the way down Justin's spine. Dean likes to hear the screaming, likes the way it means his hard work is being noticed and rewarded with scars in Justin's soul. It means someone else is feeling the same pain Dean felt for thirty years.

Thirty years and Sam never came to save him.

Dean loses control for a moment, looses too much acid over what's left of Justin's right lung. He positively howls.

Alastair admonishes him, crushing the triumph that flushes through Dean by tightening his claw like fingers over Dean's side. "Now, now, now," he says. "We've been over this, Dean. Sammy's not coming for you. No one is."

"I don't need them," Dean snarls, slamming his fist down on the table. Justin whimpers pathetically.

"That's right, you don't," Alastair whispers, his hand sliding slowly up Dean's chest. "It's just you and me and—" Sighing, Alastair slides his forearm over Dean's eyes, draws his head back against Alastair's shoulder. He likes keeping Dean open and vulnerable, likes to see Dean's neck bared for his taking. "Well," he says, laughing and drawing his tongue up Dean's neck, scraping his teeth back down the side of his throat. "I'm sure you recognize him."

And when Dean opens his eyes to look down at the table, Justin is gone. In his place is a teenage boy, taller, thinner, more muscular. Familiar, with floppy hair and a terrified expression like a puppy.

"Sam," he says, rolling the word across his tongue. He hasn't said it in years, not after he stopped screaming out for him when he was still sitting on the rack.

"Yes," Alastair says. "I'd say he's around—eighteen here? About the time he abandoned you for better prospects, isn't it?"

Dean snarls, tries to jerk forward out of Alastair's grip, but he only laughs and holds Dean in place with one hand on his thigh and the other splayed across Dean's windpipe. "Not so fast, Dean. Remember when I taught you about patience? We don't want all that training to go right out the window."

"No," he says after a pause, sinking back against Alastair. "No, we don't."

"What do you say we start with this?" Alastair asks, holding up a long, thin whip for Dean's careful inspection. He takes it with a hungry growl; it's Dean's personal favorite. He loves the way it opens up a person's insides so slowly and erratically, how he can throw his whole body into it. To be in control of it is to lose control.

Besides, they always scream louder when Dean gets to the part where he's whipping straight into their stomachs.

"Remember, Dean," Alastair says as he steps back, hands dragging heavily away. "Remember what he did to you. How he left you because you weren't good enough for him. Nothing you ever did was good enough for precious baby Sammy, and he never cared enough about you to save you from me."

"No, please, Dean,  _don't_ ," Sam begs, his hands in fists and pulling against the ropes that hold him down. Dean knows that it's not really Sam, but it's a damn close resemblance. Sounds just like him when he was a teenager. And, fuck, Dean doesn't hate him, doesn't want to hurt him, but the hypnotic lull of Alastair's voice is threading through his brain and dragging cracks in his rationality. It's a  _damned if I do, damned if I don't_ kind of scenario _,_ because Dean somehow finds it hysterical that he's damned in Hell and what the fuck else is there to do down here?

In that moment, Dean is certain when he says, "I'm glad you're here to burn."

When his little brother screams at the first lash of the whip, Dean laughs louder than Alastair does. He lets himself go, drowns in the pleasure of inflicting pain, and taunts Sam over and over again, "This is what you get for leaving me, you little bitch. This is punishment, and you deserve it for what you did to me." Alastair cheers him on, cackling when Sam's ribs start to show through the frayed, bloody mess of his skin.

Dean fucking loves the way his baby brother looks on his back, broken and begging for mercy.

"You're not gonna leave me again," Dean says as he dips his hand into the deep wounds on Sam's stomach, grabbing and lifting whatever organs he finds there, stirring them up. "Are you, Sammy?" he says, leaning over Sam and bringing his bloody hand up to Sam's face, grabbing his chin and forcing their eyes together. It's a perverse power that's tingling beneath his fingertips, or maybe it's just the scent of blood driving him into a frenzy.

Sam shakes his head desperately. "I won't—won't—Dean, won't leave, promise, I—"

"Shut up," Dean snarls, shoving two fingers down Sam's throat because his voice is absolutely  _grating_. Sam chokes, gags, and a sudden desire overwhelms Dean to see how far down he can stick his hand.

"Do it," Alastair murmurs in his ear, drawing closer like a moth to flame. His arms slide back around Dean and his teeth nibble softly against the junction of Dean's neck and collarbone. "C'mon, Dean,  _baby_ , break his jaw open for me and see how far he opens up for you."

There's a morbid fascination filling Dean. Blood smears across Sam's face, blood and pieces of his insides torn up by the whip and Dean feels the last tiny shards of rationality falling out of his mind.

He slips his ring finger in Sam's mouth as Alastair watches. Little finger. Thumb, and Sam's lips look so pretty stretched around his hand like that and he wonders, just for a second.

Alastair laughs darkly. "You always think about your baby brother like that, Dean? That's a pretty punishable offense, even by my standards."

Growling, Dean ignores him—no one asked for a demon's opinion anyway—and digs his hand in further. The pads of his fingers explore the feeling of Sam's tongue twitching restlessly all the way to the back of his throat, all soft, slick,  _giving_  heat. He's gagging around Dean's hand, every single one of his muscles twitching to get away from Dean's invasion.

"You're going to need to make more room," Alastair says with a short laugh. He fits his hips right up against Dean's ass, pressing completely against Dean. For his part, Dean doesn't react, stepping closer to Sam's head as he forces his other hand into Sam's mouth as well. "Now pull on three," Alastair whispers. "One." Dean's fingers curl for leverage, fingertips pressed to the backs of Sam's teeth. "Two." Sam's eyes are wide, pleading, terrified.

"Three."

Dean doesn't hesitate. His arms fly apart, ripping Sam's face in half and breaking right through his jaw like something out of a movie; he doesn't think this is physically possible, but the things Dean has seen in this place are beyond the realm of possibility on Earth.

Sam moans low in his throat, the rest of his body convulsing with pain, blood pooling down and matting into his hair, turning it sticky and red. Sweat shines on his forehead, and a drop sliding off the bridge of Sam's nose enthralls Dean.

"It's so rare," Alastair says as Dean studies Sam, "that I get a student like you who actually bothers to take initiative like this. You have so much potential, Dean. Ten years, gone in the blink of an eye. Look, baby, just look at how much you've learned." He presses closer, shoves the top of Dean's thighs up against the table, and Dean only vaguely notices the long line of Alastair's dick against his ass. It's Sam that has Dean spellbound.

He drags his fingers up the rips in Sam's cheeks so Sam whimpers, sees the way his tongue flops limply around the gash covering his face. Slowly, Dean slips his hand back where it should be, inside Sam's mouth, but now it doesn't catch on the worthless tension of his teeth. There's simply no resistance in him anymore, no more structure to Sam's face that's getting in the way. Down, deep, further than he should be able to, and Sam just opens up for him so sweetly, the soft flesh of his esophagus yielding to Dean as he bears down on it relentlessly.

"There you go, Dean, yeah," Alastair breathes in Dean's ear, hips rolling against him. "Now make it hurt; turn it into  _real_  pain."

Dean curls his fingers, digging his nails into Sam more than he really needs to as he makes a fist, and true to form, Sam tries to scream. It doesn't escape, though, just vibrates against the pulse point on Dean's wrist. And it should be scary, that Dean is fucking  _fisting_  his baby brother's face, but then his attention is caught by the way Sam's loose jaw slides to the side when Dean turns his wrist just so, and it doesn't matter anymore how terrifying this should be.

"Perfect." Biting Dean's neck, Alastair says, "Now what are you going to do? What else does Sammy deserve for leaving you alone to rot?"

Sam should be dead, is what he deserves, but people don't die in Hell, not really. They're torn apart and sewed back up just to feel it all over again, but they don't die.

So Dean does the next logical thing—he grinds back on Alastair's hips and tosses his head back like Alastair likes. Chuckling, Alastair says, "Alright, sweetheart, there you go," and slides a hand into Dean's hair, tugging back, and Dean melts against him. "No little brothers, no guardian angels," Alastair whispers into Dean's neck. "Just you and me, baby, for the rest of forever. We don't need anybody else. What do you say?"

"Yes," Dean hisses, and he can feel a hand creeping down the back of his pants. " _Yes._ "

This is Hell. This is the place where no one cares enough about Dean for him to care about any of them, the place where he'll rip the only good thing in his life to pieces when told and do it while a demon fucks him. Dean isn't a demon, not by a long shot, but he's on his way there, and with two fingers up his ass and his hand down his brother's throat, he thinks this might be the time to fully give in. After all, he's not getting out; there's no one coming for him.

No one ever will.


	2. Strangeness and Charm

The gates of Hell aren't quite what Castiel expected. They're white, for one, all gleaming marble pillars and silver-gilded metal. There are no guards, either, which is less surprising when Castiel sees that what lies beyond is clearly hellish and no creature would make the mistake of travelling there. The part that unsettles Castiel the most, though, are the infamous words, "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate," carved roughly into the arch like an afterthought, ugly and crude compared to the rest of the gate. He can feel how long they have been there, engraved in the last terrified moments of a poor soul's existence. The feeling of foreboding radiating off them is palpable, and Castiel can feel it affecting his brothers just as much as him.

"Are you ready, brothers?" Castiel asks, drawing his sword and steadying himself. His garrison stands just around him, drawing tight to Castiel. The others that have been given orders to fight their way into Hell are grouped behind, fierce and silent in a ragtag team of human vessels. Castiel knows he will grieve for many of the angels though he knows so few of them personally.

"Ready," Hester confirms, and Balthazar steps up to his side. Castiel can feel the absence of Anna keenly; a longing for her to return to heaven that still plagues him. But Anna is gone, fallen. She's been fallen for years.

"It's been a long time since anyone let me fight," Balthazar says, laughing in joy. "It's been even longer since I've gotten to kill any of these nasty Hell spawn."

"Don't lose your head, brother," Inias says. "We have a mission to complete."

Castiel murmurs his assent, tossing the thoughts of Anna away from him. This is the moment he has been waiting for, and Castiel isn't about to forget himself in his sorrow and the excitement of pulling Dean out of Hell. Far too many things could still go wrong and he is unused to leading such a great army.

The land is strangely quiet as Castiel leads the way into Hell. Their wings are bound here until they attempt to leave, which is a contradiction Castiel finds confusing. It keeps them out, but the gates aren't exactly guarded either, and they can still leave whenever they want. Hell probably isn't supposed to make much sense, though.

Sloping gently down, the landscape in front of them is bleak and flat first before it turns rocky. Castiel scans all around, but the land is empty as the brownish sky above.

He isn't expecting it when the first demon attacks from directly below. Uriel presses his hand to it and destroys it as it crawls its way up his legs. They are swarming out of the ground, coming from every possible direction, with blood on their backs and wounds where their eyes should be. Definitely not Hell's best, but a nuisance all the same, Castiel thinks as he fights his way past with his jaw clenched against the stench of demons. They don't do much more than cling to the angels and gnaw with their broken teeth, but it's enough to slow them down, so Castiel just keeps stabbing them with his sword and shrugging their bodies away. They aren't worth the energy it will take to slay them with his grace.

Eventually, they fall away, and when Castiel looks back past his army, the ones still standing are simply sitting there and watching. He doesn't have time to look back before Inias bursts forward, stabbing up and quick with his sword into what has to be the largest demon Castiel has ever seen, all reaching claws and gaping mouth, large and bulky like nothing created by God.

That's when he sees them all around, masquerading as rocks until someone dares tumble into their midst—the angels are closely surrounded. He realizes too late that the first attack was to lower their guard, let their standards drop for the creatures they would have to face, and Castiel curses himself for being fooled. He throws himself straight into the fight after Hester.

An arm swings down, claws curving sharp and cruel out of it. Castiel dives to the side and barely lurches out of the way of a second. He swings his sword around as he escapes, stabbing the demon in the back and forcing the sword as deep as it can go. The demon shrieks, curling in on itself as Castiel pulls his sword out to slash at another one. He doesn't watch as it crumples to the ground, just stabs the demon that is viciously clawing at Uriel.

Something yanks Castiel off his feet, two clawed hands wrapped around him and squeezing. "Balthazar!" he shouts as blood wells up on his sides. His arms are pinned.

Hester shouts—she's not far off with a demon hoisting her up into the air as well. Castiel wrestles his arm free, raises his sword, and throws it at the demon's back.

He guides it with his grace, and Balthazar cries out triumphantly. Then Castiel is falling as the demon holding him disappears. When he looks up again, Hester is pulling his sword out of a demon and tossing it back to him. She nods at him for the briefest of moments, and they whirl back to the battle.

They fight and fight with these demons, armies spread out in a long line across Hell, and eventually Castiel looks around to see that they haven't made any headway. There are giants strewn about on the ground, dead or barely moving, and the angels are holding their own, but they aren't getting any closer to where Dean is. The demons just keep on advancing—the moment one falls, another is ready and eager to take its place

"Run, brothers!" Castiel shouts. The call is taken up by his army as they echo him, and Castiel throws himself to the ground to avoid a reaching demon.

Inias pulls Castiel up by the wrist as he sprints by. Uriel is hot on his heels, Balthazar and Hester trailing behind. It's easier to run once they distance themselves from where they had fought. These demons are slow; they have to drag their legs along just to take a step, and as long as the angels don't get too close, they can simply slide past.

A dark line stretches across the landscapes as far as Castiel can see, and he runs toward it. They're miraculously still together, slowing only to stab the demons that truly get in their way, and when Castiel reaches a wall standing far above his head, they've been running for an endless amount of time.

Others along the line are waiting at the bottom, but Castiel doesn't think twice before leaping up onto the wall, digging his fingers into the slate and hauling himself up. His grace heals his broken bones the instant they crack as he scrambles upwards, clinging to the wall with the others hot on his heels. The demon giants haven't thinned out in the least and they're all slowly but surely making their way to where the angels are desperately climbing up a wall that doesn't want to give them an inch.

Hauling himself up to look over the top, Castiel surveys the next landscape. It's the River Styx with a surface like a mirror, and he knows it's deceptively still. Charon does not ferry from here; no soul is meant to enter this part of Hell. The river is wider than a lake, infinitely deep, and infamous for its eternally drowning souls who won't hesitate to attack anything that could pull them up into the air—Castiel doesn't want to get close to them at all, not in the weak human form he's had to assume just to be able to drag Dean to Earth without blinding him. But it's unavoidable.

The other angels are watching him, waiting for his orders where they cling to the top of the wall much the same way Castiel is doing. "Do not let them pull you down," he orders. "They will likely be weak, but there are many souls there."

"Hey, can't be any worse than that back there," Balthazar complains. "They were touching me in some very inappropriate places, Cassy."

"Do not joke, brother," Hester says, casting him an uneasy look. "If these spirits pull us down far enough, it is likely we will never climb back out of Hell."

Balthazar says nothing. Swinging his legs up to stand on top of the wall, Castiel says, "Are we ready?"

"Of course," Uriel says as the others join Castiel in standing, and he raises his sword.

"Let's go."

Castiel doesn't know how to swim, but his vessel has more than enough muscle memory to handle the task. The water is a cold shock even through the buffer of his grace blocking most physical sensation as he plummets beneath the water, but he forces himself to kick back to air before the trapped souls can yank him further down.

Uriel is already moving, and Castiel takes off after him, his legs kicking out automatically to propel him forward. Every slick slide of water against him feels like it could be a hand reaching up to grab him and he's twitchy because of it; paranoia is too foreign a feeling for him to ignore.

Balthazar cries out suddenly. Castiel doesn't turn back—they've been noticed now—and he waits for the thrashing about to cease. Uriel hacks off a hand ahead where it's latched itself around his vessel's wrist, and he gives it a look of utter disgust as he pries it off and tosses it down into the river.

Castiel realizes too late that there are hands fisting in his trench coat. His head slips underwater for the barest second; he only just manages to pull himself up again before the demons can draw him down forever. He kicks out wildly, and Castiel's foot hits a body solidly with a thud muffled by the water.

Calling his knife back to him, Castiel grasps a bloated arm and slices cleanly through the wrist. He kicks desperately to keep his body afloat, and Castiel is incredibly glad he chose a vessel with a background in swimming. Its instincts are good—Castiel barely has to pay attention to keep his head above water as he presses his hand to the forehead of a soul that's gripping at his shoulders. It disappears in a flash of light, never to know pain or peace or perdition again.

That's how he battles his way across the river with his brothers around him, hacking off hands and destroying souls that have found their eternity in Hell.  _Now, they will find eternity nowhere_ , he thinks bitterly, smiting another as its head tries to clear the water for the breath of air it has craved for thousands of years.

He can feel his brothers' fear as the souls drag them down, sparking grief in his soul. None of his garrison, yet, but he isn't naïve enough to think they'll definitely all survive.

Castiel's feet touch the bottom of the river as the opposite shore nears. There's another wall to climb after the barest few inches of sand, and Castiel flings his waterlogged body at it without a thought. Hester and Uriel have already scrambled up to the top with many others. He looks frantically around for Balthazar and Inias, but Balthazar climbs up onto the bank at that very moment, cursing heavily at a bleeding bite on his forearm. Castiel feels sympathy for how the sulfur must sting as Balthazar heals it.

Inias, though—where is Inias? Castiel's wings jerk against their bindings, his every instinct screaming to flare them and fly out to find his brother, but Inias surfaces again from the water quickly. Relief courses through Castiel and then freezes like ice when he goes down again. " _Inias!_ " he shouts. Hester drops from her perch on the wall, ready to dive back into the river to save him, but it's too late.

Inias rises out of the water one more time, his expression anguished and covered in the deepest sorrow as he looks at Castiel. Then his gray wings rise and in a flurry of feathers, he is gone to heaven.

"Well, shit," Balthazar says, and they pause a moment to gather themselves and put their heads back in the fight. Nearly losing an angel from their garrison is enough to want to send Castiel back to heaven and forfeit their progress through Hell in favor of making sure his brother is well.

Hester sighs heavily and busies herself with prying off a dismembered hand latched onto Castiel's ankle that he hadn't noticed. "He's safe in heaven," Hester says lowly. Nodding brusquely, Castiel turns back from the lake to climb up the wall. The last of the angels are clinging to the shoreline. It hurts Castiel to see how his army's numbers have decreased merely by crossing the river.

"Castiel, you should see this," Uriel says, looking down on him with serious eyes. His vessel looks out of place to Castiel, a human entirely too sober and solemn for Uriel's personality.

Castiel scrambles up the wall and pokes his head over the top without any preamble. What lies beyond is, well, a city. Sort of. It's a demonic, burning city in the middle of Hell with hardened lava underneath and granite structures; ash falls like rain even now. Castiel can see a handful of hellhounds roaming the streets below, but it looks strangely deserted otherwise. The buildings are falling apart, graphite rooftops crumbling in and walls blown out all over the place while blood lingers on every available surface. Castiel is faintly surprised the city hasn't collapsed in on itself.

Balthazar tilts his head. "Must be naptime," he says, eyes lingering on the emptiness of it all.

God built Hell barren but for the River Styx. Anything else has been built by the creatures of Hell, and there is certainly a level of planning to it that Castiel didn't expect. He doesn't have much of a plan for sneaking through a city where they could be injured in the cramped spaces between buildings or lose themselves in the myriad of streets crisscrossing the landscape. The only thing organized about this place is the wide roads that circle around the center—seven in its entirety, to complete the nine circles of Hell. The rest of Hell's city is broken, decomposing, bloodied, and in general disarray.

Dean's soul shines too brightly to miss now, resting just outside Hell's ninth circle, and the angels cannot afford to be split up while they make their way to it. The demons that live here will be much more conscious of what they're doing, driven less by an instinct to fight or survive and more by the need to bind an angel to Hell and revel in the rewards. Odds are the demons already know they're coming. They would have prepared if that's the case, and the angels will have no element of surprise on their side.

"We'll go as far as we can before they see us," Castiel orders. "Do not fall back, do not rush ahead, and do  _not_  split up. And if one of us is taken—leave him." He shudders—it hurts to think of such a thing, of leaving one of his brothers down here, but it is a chance they have to take. "Risk everything," he says, "and leave immediately after I have raised Dean from this place."

"We'll follow you as far as we have to," Uriel says as the directions are passed down. Hester murmurs her assent as Balthazar pulls his body up to stand on top of the wall.

"Cassy," he says in an unusually fervent tone. "You know I'd go to Hell forever for you. And if I do, I swear I will climb back into heaven and pull your feathers out one by one for even thinking I'd never come back." Castiel looks at his brother, standing proud and unafraid.

"Thank you, Balthazar," Castiel says slowly. "But I fear that is—"

"If there is one thing I know," Balthazar hisses, "it is that  _nothing_  is impossible. Do not dare trivialize my loyalty by saying so."

With that, he leaps off the wall into the city. Ash flies into the air around him—this part of the city must be mostly uninhabited, it's so empty. Castiel stares at Balthazar, feeling terrified for him. If he is captured here, Castiel knows that the only thing that can pull him out again is another rescue mission. The demons will bind him permanently; will hold him down and oh so carefully cut his wings off, feather by feather and bone by bone. He will not make it out.

Castiel physically shakes himself to get rid of that line of thought—they will all survive this, and Dean too.

He vaults the rest of the way over the wall. Uriel has already joined Balthazar on the ground where they are looking carefully into a building that looks like a giant has stepped on half of it. Castiel uses his grace to call out to them—he'd rather not make noise now that they've entered the city proper—and pull them back to the task. The other angels join them, forming tight ranks through the narrow street.

They almost make it to the next circle before a hellhound jumps on Uriel from behind. He throws it off quickly and slashes at the thing's throat before it can sound an alarm.

A snarling demon leaps on Castiel's back immediately, clinging to his shoulders unexpectedly and dragging him backward. Castiel simply reacts, grabbing the leg hitched around his hips in one hand and grasps for the grotesquely shaped head practically drooling on his neck. He shoves the leg away at the same time he drags the demon up and over his shoulder by its forehead. Its body smashes into an advancing demon, and Castiel quickly smites them both before they can sort out their disorientation. Enough demons have flooded into the street that Castiel suspects this edge of the city might not be as uninhabited as he originally thought.

He runs another through with his sword while it's busy creeping up on Hester, and Uriel destroys one in a bright flash of light. Castiel shoves a demon into the ashes at his feet and spins in the next moment, his sword slicing cleanly through a demon's skull and lopping half of it off. Castiel grunts as two leap on him from behind, sending him stumbling forward.

Balthazar is there, laughing in delight as he spins Castiel around to smite one and drive his sword into the heart of the other. Kicking out, Castiel catches a demon with a bloody mouth in the side and sends it rolling to the ground.

"That's it, Cassy!" Balthazar cries triumphantly as the demon stands up. It looks between the angels, terrified, and Castiel belatedly realizes that most of the other demons are dead as it takes off.

"Don't let it get away!" Hester says, racing away.

"Hester, stop!" Castiel shouts. Uriel raises his hand, and Hester turns to him in confusion before she understands. With a bored, practiced air, Uriel catches the demon in his grace, freezing it there before the demon simply explodes at the snap of Uriel's fingers. Castiel appreciates his brother's ability to turn creatures into individual particles at will.

They push onward, encountering a smaller group of demons on the first circular road. It's easily taken care of, but Hester gets demon blood all over her and her entire grace is repulsed by it. Balthazar just laughs at her while she restores her vessel. It's probably unwise for them to waste energy on things beyond fighting and healing themselves, but Castiel understands. He wouldn't want such abominable blood covering his vessel either.

The demons get stronger and more numerous as they battle through the next three circles, and Castiel can feel himself tiring. It's taking more and more out of his grace to smite them, and the physicality of the fight keeps going up as the demons change from scrawny street crawlers to the more refined torturers and evildoers. A handful of his brothers have been lost already, some stolen away from the edges of the battle and others fled in panic, and the bloodlust of battle is tinged with grief now. The worst part of it all is Castiel can feel his connection with Heaven thinning as they travel further. He feels weak without it.

Every now and then, Castiel catches a glimpse through a busted out window or a door hanging off its hinges and sees bloodied bodies tied down with knives in their eyes or rats nibbling away at their chests. These souls are still human, haven't broken, and Castiel's mind whispers to him that Dean  _has_  broken, and he might be further out of reach than Castiel believes.

He won't believe it, though; Castiel has observed for years how truly good Dean is. He may have broken, may have given in to darkness, but he has not crumbled. Not yet. And Castiel will keep fighting, will not stop, because he  _will_  pull Dean out whole and made perfect again. He will not forsake him.

The seventh circle is when it all goes to shit.

Castiel is fighting with everything he has, his sword slicing through demons as easily as air, his eyes so used to the brightness of a demon flickering out of existence that he no longer reacts to the light. Uriel is near his back, Hester to his right and Balthazar slightly beyond her. The rest of the army is spread thickly across the wide road around him. Castiel is tired and the slew of demons bearing down on them is nearly overwhelming, but these are still not Hell's best. The angels, however, are Heaven's best, and Castiel is becoming more and more confident that they will rescue Dean before he loses himself.

" _Cas_!" Balthazar screams. A terror so poignant and crippling floods from Balthazar, and Castiel is frozen as he feels the phantom sensation of chains blanketing him and his vision fades out. There is nothing but fear and destructive panic as everything turns blacker than Hell as Balthazar's terror projects through him.

Castiel's vision flickers back into view again, all black obsidian on gloomy onyx with distorted, wrinkled faces and glossy coal eyes, and still nothing to compare to the utter darkness he felt from Balthazar.

It's just like watching Inias again, struggling out of the clutches of a handful of demons. Balthazar's wings rise, a shock of burgundy against the landscape of Hell. Castiel feels sorrow knowing that Balthazar will be in Heaven instead of fighting down here with them, cutting his previous worries to shreds knowing that while Balthazar won't be here with them, he will be safe. He will fly away, out of this pit of despair, and they will meet again in Heaven.

Only, he isn't flying off. He's still screaming, "Cas, oh god,  _Cassy_ , help—Uriel, Hester, someone!  _Help me please_!" He's struggling in the most undignified way, blood welling up because the demons holding him are too careless with their knives to even be attempting to avoid Balthazar and Balthazar is unable to heal himself.

Castiel sees it too late, the chain wrapped around Balthazar's chest that is thick and oddly colorless in a way that Castiel can't name. Enochian symbols are etched into it, covering it in threatening words like _binding_  and  _wings_ and  _Hell_.

"Balthazar!" he shouts, throwing himself into a demon and knocking it clean to the ground in a haste to reach his brother. "Balthazar, hold on—"

And Hester is there, too, flashing the world white as she smites one of the demons holding Balthazar's chains. Two demons grab her around the waist and pull her back, tossing Hester into a fray where Castiel can no longer see her. He hopes that they don't have more of the binding chains.

Uriel shouts "Save him!" as he dives after Hester.

Castiel shoves the demons off him, ignoring them and praying they don't interfere too much; his only concern at this moment is saving Balthazar. His hands lock around a chain and Castiel hauls on it with all the power of his vessel and grace, but it will not budge no matter how hard he pulls. His strength isn't gone; it  _isn't_ , because Castiel can feel it thrumming just below his skin, engraved deep within his grace to make him physically tough. But the chains won't move.

"Cas…" Balthazar whispers brokenly, and when Castiel looks into his eyes, all of Heaven, Hell, and Earth fall away. There is only the moment, the heart-breaking, death-defying moment where Castiel knows he cannot save his brother from Hell's wrath.

Castiel has to wonder, is this what Sam Winchester feels like? Is this the feeling brothers get when one of them goes to the darkest place God ever created, all for the sake of the other? Is this what it's like to know that something worse than death has happened to your brother?

"I'm so sorry," Castiel says, shock thrumming through him as his heart speeds up in a curious motion. His words cannot do his feelings justice; there is no appropriate thing to  _say_  at a time like this. "Balthazar, I'm  _so sorry_."

Determination suddenly flashes into Balthazar's eyes, and it's  _such_  an older brother thing, what he says next. Balthazar has a habit, Castiel reflects dully, of reassuring him of impossible things. "I'll be back, Cassy," he snarls, face twisting into an expression ugly enough to rival a demon's face. "Don't you worry, just go find Dean. I will find my way back to Heaven, Cas, I promise you. I will destroy these soulless—"

Castiel cries out as several demons yank him back and away by his hair. He instinctively buries his sword in their throats one by one, and by the time he turns back to where Balthazar is standing, there is only Hester left looking ruined.

A demon runs him clean through with a knife while Castiel stares—irritating, but not anything that could kill him. He turns and slays it numbly, anguish overwhelming him for the moment. Then he pulls his sword out of its neck, turns to Hester, and says, "You heard him. We have to save Dean." And there really isn't time for this conversation, because even as he speaks he has to press his hand to a demon's forehead to get rid of it.

"We need to hurry," Uriel shouts. Castiel can sense his grace is drenched in misery, and he feels much the same way. But Balthazar was right—they need to keep fighting, need to finish the mission because it is not worth it to risk more in the future by pulling out now.

Besides, he suspects more than just a few of his brothers have been taken now.

Castiel barrels into the next circle—number eight where Dean is, and his soul is so close now. Castiel can see the way it is a little more ragged than before, but still whole and human. It's a welcome relief.

Uriel and Hester tear into demons ahead, and Castiel only pauses to destroy whichever demons are stupid enough to sneak up from behind. The eighth circle is the skinniest, and before long, he can see the very  _building_  where Dean is. A rush fills him as Hester shouts, "Hurry! We'll fly off the moment you have him."

Castiel brushes their grace with his and sends a message of determination through his army as he dodges a demon and hurls himself at the single door keeping him from Dean. He knocks it clean off as he shoulders it open and suddenly Dean is  _there_.

And Dean is still somehow beautiful.

Castiel can see the part of him where he broke, where he shielded himself against morality and pain by ripping a gash so deep within his soul that Castiel isn't sure it can ever be made smooth again. The way he is now, Dean is bent naked over the table, instrument cart pushed slightly off to the side, as Alastair fucks him brutally. Castiel vaguely recognizes the face of Sam Winchester lying off to the side—what's left of it, anyway, and compassion for Dean nearly crushes him. He has been made to destroy his brother, to kneel and submit to the advances of Hell's finest torturer. Everything Dean has ever prided himself on—helping people, saving his family, never giving into the darkness that surrounds him—has been smashed in Hell.

Alastair looks up in alarm when he hears the door fall, pulling out of Dean with a sickening noise. Castiel tosses him to the side with a flick of his wrist, stunning him against the rock wall—it's only possible because Castiel caught him off guard, and even then, Castiel is unsure how long he has before Alastair attacks.

And then Dean turns to look at him, his eyes wide, wide, and  _green_ , like nothing else, and Castiel feels himself tripping and falling into them. For all he knows about Dean Winchester, Castiel has never looked him in the eyes, and it's a novelty, even though he is covered in blood and the hate of Hell is fresh in his heart.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean demands. He grabs a knife from the table behind him and holds it between himself and Castiel.

Castiel looks him straight in the eye, lifting his chin. "I have come to save you."

Dean scoffs at him. "Yeah, right." And he stabs Castiel right in the heart.

Tilting his head, Castiel lifts his hand to Dean's shoulder, ignoring the way the knife twists against his ribs. "You have work to do," he murmurs. "And it is time for you to return."

Castiel unfurls his wings, feels the bindings on them loosen as his intentions to leave this place become clear. They are dark as night, rippling cleanly into the air with the flight feathers spread proud and wide. Dean's eyes widen at the sight of them, and Castiel pulls him away. Light flashes brilliantly around Castiel, brighter than all of the demons' deaths he has seen today combined, and Dean's eyes grow wider.

Dean's soul is in Castiel's very hands; he is cradling it against his body, keeping it safe from everything. His hand is burning into Dean, marking him, saying,  _This soul belongs to me._ And it does now, Castiel knows, as he drags it from the pit.

All of Castiel's knowledge about Dean slides effortlessly to the front of his mind. There, that part is the exact memory of how Dean's hair lightens in the summer and darkens in the winter, and the part next to it is the bend of his foot's outer arch. Here, where his elbows stitch into his forearms and form that soft wave of muscle. His heart, beating steady despite the time he was supposed to die of a heart attack. The freckles on the back of his hands. The diameter of his fingernails, the cosine of his pupil, the tangent curve of his lower back, the fractal of his skin, the three-space vector compilation of his hair because Castiel often thinks in mathematical equations. And the scripture in the way his face smiles and the thin painted lines of hair dusting his legs, the comparison of the length of his legs to his torso and the long stretches of corded muscle dancing beneath his skin. The song of his voice and the mechanical engineering behind it in his throat because Dean is more than just an equation. He is a work of art.

Everything. Castiel feels everything as the memories flow freely around them, so full of  _Sam_  and  _protection_  and  _family_. These are the things that define Dean, and even as Castiel learns the torture Dean was submitted to and begins to see how he tortured the other souls on the rack, he knows Dean is still there and lovely. Nothing has changed except he is broken in different ways; he will still love and defend with a fierceness that stuns even Castiel. In that instant, Castiel  _is_  Dean, has always  _been_  Dean, and will forever  _be_  Dean because they are one together in this. As Castiel pulls him from Hell, Dean is made whole again. He becomes human.

He becomes the beginning.


	3. No Light, No Light

Dean is almost disappointed when he wakes up in Hell. Almost, but not quite, because Alastair is there, dragging his hand over Dean's chest and saying "Wakey, wakey!" into his ear like Dean is five years old and Dean is obscenely glad to see him. "You gonna come play with me today, sweetheart?" he asks, pinching Dean's nipple sharply.

Shuddering, Dean breathes, "Yeah."

"You and I have separate appointments today; I know how long you've been waiting for that," Alastair says. "But we'll see each other later, baby, not to worry."

Dean licks his lips as he sits up, looking at Alastair warily. "Is this because I tortured Sam?" he asks, rubbing his wrists where the manacles chafed him last night. It usually takes decades before demons are allowed to torture souls without their makers looking over their shoulders.

"You broke down remarkably quickly, Dean. Usually when I do that, they say no the first time or five." Alastair laughs and drags Dean's leg up around his hip. "But you're not quite like the others, though, are you, baby? You  _want_  to hurt these people; you  _want_  to turn little Sammy's insides to soup. You'd probably drink them, too, if I made you. Would you like that? Would you like me to bring something like that back for you tonight?"

Dean nods frantically, already salivating at the thought. He's had a taste for flesh since Alastair cut Dean's chest open and fed him his own lungs piece by piece while he fucked Dean. That was damn near twenty-five years ago, and the taste still lingers thick and heavy in Dean's throat when he remembers it. It's  _addicting_ , the rush of power it gives him even tied down at Alastair's mercy. It makes him wonder why he ever felt vindicated in getting rid of the wendigos back on Earth; hell, if he was still there, Dean would probably be one of them.

"Good boy."

Alastair tucks Dean against his side as they make their way through Hell's streets to the building Dean will be working in today. It's in the fifth circle where torturers usually have years of practice under their belts, far more than Dean who's never worked alone in his afterlife. It's louder down here, full of souls and nothing to keep the screams enclosed.

"You're special, sweetheart," Alastair tells him smugly. "I broke you far better than most; it's easier to build you back up, baby, when you've already snapped in half."

Dean says nothing. He doesn't like to talk about how he broke in Hell any more than he likes to dream about living on Earth, the handful of times he gets the chance to dream. They remind him of being human and how he used to be strong. There is no strength or honor in what he does anymore; it's purely cowardly. But Dean isn't a good enough person anymore to put himself back on the rack. The other souls, they're gonna get tortured anyway. He may as well do it and avoid the pain himself.

Dean is selfless like that.

He starts the girl on his rack off easy—she's new, a fresh soul who hasn't seen this end of Hell yet, and she has questions for him. Besides, instilling terror in the new ones is a ritual honored by all of Hell's torturers.

"What do you think you're doing?" she shouts at Dean, attempting to tug her wrists out of the ropes holding them. Dean knows from experience that she'll never get out of them and it isn't worth trying. He isn't opposed to watching her struggle, though; there's a certain sort of pleasure in watching her try.

"Well, Claudia," he says, reading her rap sheet and shining his favorite knife. "I think you know exactly what I'm doing. You've got a lot of shit listed here. Apparently you hated a lot of different groups and even managed to drive your own son to suicide because you hated him so much for being gay." Dean laughs at her and twirls his knife around his fingers. "He's here too, you know. Suicides, they don't get into Heaven. Then again, neither do dicks like you."

"You can't do this to me! I am an upstanding member of my community and—"

"Yeah, you had a dog, two kids, a rich husband—we know about the money you stole from him, by the way—and were on the 'Community Clean-Up Committee!' You even named it, and I promise," Dean says with a roll of his eyes, "part of the reason you're here is for that obnoxious fucking exclamation mark you put at the end of it."

She's still spluttering about the money thing, though. "I can't believe you'd even  _suggest_ that I would ever steal from my—"

"Shut up," Dean says, pressing his knife against her lips. He likes this one. She argues and babbles in protest, still convinced there's a way for her to get out of here. Most souls are a lot more resigned. "Trust me, we know everything you've ever done. And before you tell me, you're  _angry,_  of course you are. Why do you think you're here?" Chuckling, Dean puts pressure on his knife and watches as it slides into her lip. Claudia whimpers. He loves the ones who come from painless, comfortable lives—they make the prettiest noises. "Tell me," he whispers into her ear, "why?"

"I don't know!" she snaps at him. "I don't deserve to be here; I lived a good life!"

Dean backs off, reaches for her sheet, and holds it right in front of her. "I'll tell  _you_ , then," he offers diplomatically. "You have about fifteen different anger issues starting with racism and ending with paying an assassin to murder a man who stole from you. They're not psychotic problems, is the thing, so you can't get a free pass to heaven. Plus there's your son, and the stealing—really, you shoulda been some kind of mafia lord. The contacts and the charisma are all here, but you're too lazy to get into all of that work."

Claudia is silent, her wet mouth opening and closing compulsively. Dean tilts his head, waiting for a reaction.

"You got anything to say for yourself, gorgeous?"

That seems to snap her out of it. "I demand you to let me out of here!"

Dean contemplates that. "I could saw your feet off and release your bindings. Then you could run and I could chase you. It'd be just like I was back on Earth, hunting down sons of bitches like you and ganking them." He brushes off the unease that spreads through his stomach at the thought of his life on Earth being similar to the one he has down here.

Claudia snarls. "Eat me, you freak."

Throwing his head back and laughing, Dean says, "Filthy mouth. Sweetheart, you're gonna wish you never said that." He drops his knife on the cart carelessly and pushes his shirtsleeves up. "You probably won't taste as nice as an outright murderer," he murmurs, trailing his fingers through the blood staining her lips and licking it delicately from his fingertips. "The more despicable you are in life, the better you taste after death, I've noticed. You'll be alright, I think."

Realization dawns on her face, widening her eyes and drawing her brow together. A perturbed feeling stabs into Dean's throat as it reminds him of Sam— _his_  Sam, not the younger lookalike he tore into yesterday and now even that memory is turning his stomach. He pushes it down as Claudia screams for mercy, to take it back, anything, but this is Dean's time to prove himself to Alastair. It's time to show he can do this without being watched like a child.

Dean leans down to breathe on her neck hotly. She squeals beautifully, and Dean rewards her with teeth scraping down the firm column of her throat. "You ready, baby?" he asks.

She cries out again. Dean forces his mouth into a smile to wash away the unhappy lump settling in the pit of his throat and bites down before he can contemplate it any longer.

At the first flood of blood into his mouth, thick, coppery, and sweet, the switch flips and everything is gone from Dean's mind except the frenzy of desire for power, for flesh. He's mindless, the taste of blood settling in nicely against the hole in his soul, stitching him up temporarily, and Dean growls as he bites down harder. The first taste of flesh is  _sweet_ , the blood still pounding against his tongue and the meat warm and alive—

Then Dean wakes up.

\---

Balthazar's capture weighs heavily on Castiel almost constantly. He always used to talk to Castiel when they were on separate missions, and whenever they were assigned to work together, Balthazar would never stop talking. Uriel is amusing because he thinks about his jokes before he tells them—Balthazar just says whatever comes to mind the instant it pops into his head.

In two thousand years stationed on Earth with no more company or purpose than the rest of their garrison, Castiel and the others are more than used to Balthazar's near constant voice in the backs of their heads. But now...now it's just silence.

_Castiel, I can feel your sadness from Heaven_ , Inias says.

Closing his eyes, Castiel tells him,  _I'm sorry. I will attempt to be silent_.

_Don't worry_ _, brother. I miss him as well_.

_It's_ _strange without him here, isn't it?_ Castiel asks, though he full well knows the answer to that.  _He's not talking,_ _and_ _I keep attempting to reach out to him._

_Me, too_ , Inias admits, his sorrow curling around the words and touching Castiel's grace gently.  _We have no mission now, and usually I would talk to him while we waited. Hester won't speak to me yet—I don't believe she's talking to anyone. She's angry that she was so close and still unable to save him._

That's an emotion Castiel understands, and he shows Inias that without hesitation.

_I feel guilty I wasn't there to help protect him_ , Inias admits after a pause.  _I shouldn't have flown away like a coward_.

_No, Inias_ , Castiel says loudly.  _Regardless of what happened, you wouldn't have been there. At least this way you made it out of Hell. Balthazar can't say the same._

Inias hesitates.  _Uriel told me Balthazar promised you he would climb back out of Hell._

Castiel shows him just how absurd he thinks that is, but Inias presses for more, saying,  _You don't think there's a chance? They're only demons._

_You didn't see the chains they bound him with, Inias_ , Castiel tells him.  _If Balthazar had seen what they are inscribed with, I_ _don't_ _think he would have made that promise._

Inias says nothing, just lets his grief flow freely over his connection with Castiel. It's comforting to share his sadness like this, Castiel thinks as he meets Inias halfway. Angels are tactile with each other in this way, sharing unhappiness and triumph with each other when they feel it. In the aftermath of so many angels' deaths, Castiel knows there must be many angels doing the same thing now.

_How is the Righteous Man?_  Inias asks after a long while.

_He is stubborn,_ Castiel says.  _He refuses to believe I am an Angel of the Lord. He has no faith. He was convinced that a demon raised him from Hell._

_An interesting theory_ , Inias says.

_He is a hunter_ , Castiel says as if that explains everything.  _He has already stabbed me and shot me, though I believe he has learned that his weapons do not work on me_ _._

_And the abomination?_

Shoving his disgust at Inias, Castiel says,  _I have hardly seen him, though Dean has joined back up with him. He leaves every room he enters smelling of demon blood. Dean doesn't suspect_ _what his...extra activities might be_ _._

_He's lying to his brother and drinking a demon's blood, then_ , Inias says scornfully _. Balthazar wouldn't wait a moment to start mocking him, I'm sure_.

_It is sure to end badly if they are not honest with each other_ , he agrees, Uriel appearing at his side.  _But Dean is the only one who can end this, now that he has started it. He will make the right decision when the world hangs in the balance._

_Zachariah is more than ready to move this along,_ Inias says.  _Dean still knows nothing of the 66 Seals or Lucifer—_

_We can do nothing until a Seal is threatened and the humans manage to notice it,_ Uriel says, sliding into their conversation effortlessly.  _I understand that Zachariah is impatient, but our actions are currently at the mercy of demons and humans._ His disgust at that fact is clear.

_We failed to stop the Rising of the Witness and it is happening as we speak,_ Castiel reports.  _The Winchesters have taken notice, though they do not yet know what it means._

_See to it that they do, Castiel. I have no patience for them_.

_Uriel_ , Castiel sighs,  _our mission is to convince Dean to end what he has started. He is a human; he was not blessed with our certainty in what must be done and it will take time._

Annoyed, Uriel says,  _That is your mission, Castiel. I am here to provide extra...incentive, if it should be required. In the meantime, I would prefer to spend as little time as possible dealing directly with the humans._

Castiel says amicably,  _I'm sure that can be arranged._

\---

"So, the apocalypse," Dean says. He has his hands wrapped around a bottle of Jack and he doesn't see the point in taking his boots off before he gets on the bed. It'll be gross later, but Dean isn't a pussy like Sam, and he can put up with a little dirt.

Castiel, on the other hand, looks vaguely disgusted, or as disgusted as he could ever look being an angelic robot dickbag. Dean isn't sure why he's here because Lilith can't seriously have broken another seal already; they  _just_ got rid of the damn witnesses not two days ago, and Dean was sort of hoping for a bit of a break before he had to put up with more of this shit. He used to gank ghosts like a respectable hunter. Now he gets picked to stop the apocalypse by a bunch of mythical creatures with giant wings.

Maybe Dean is drunk.

When Cas doesn't say anything Dean sighs and says, "You got anything else you're hiding up there? 'Cause I'm thinkin' that if you want me to stop this—" he waves the bottle at Castiel to show what he means "—then you're gonna have to stop keeping secrets from me. I don't work like that."

"I have told you everything I know," Castiel says.

Dean snorts. "What, you can't even tell me how many seals are already broken?" At Castiel's blank stare, Dean rolls his eyes and says, "Of course. You usually run with a lack of information?"

"Heaven tells me what I need to know, Dean, nothing more."

"Yeah, well, sometimes full disclosure is—y'know." Castiel doesn't look like he knows, but Dean doesn't particularly care, and he takes another swig of Jack to prove to Cas just how much he doesn't care. "All this 'show me some respect' shit is just that, Cas—shit. It doesn't mean a damn thing unless you do something I should respect you  _for_. You let people  _die_ , man. And yeah, you lost the seal, whatever. You could have saved a lot of good people if you had just told us how to do the damn ritual."

"Dean—" Castiel says.

"You can throw me back in the pit if you want," Dean says, staring right back at him. "Hell, I might even like it. Everything's a damn sight easier down there, you know." Holding up the bottle, Dean stares contemplatively at the label.

When Dean looks up again, Cas has vanished. He throws his head back on the pillow with an aggravated noise.

It's just—Dean wants to save the world, he does. But he's lived in Hell longer than he's lived on Earth. Sam would probably call it some kind of Stockholm syndrome, knowing him, but he doesn't understand. Worry doesn't exist in Hell, because as much as it hurts, it's equally predictable. If he says no to Alastair, he will be tortured; if he says yes, he will do the torturing. All very clean cut lines and if it hurts, it's not exactly a surprise.

Here...here Sam is off doing god knows what. Angels are hounding him to stop the apocalypse. Dean actually has a conscience to give a shit about what he did in Hell, and he seriously isn't drunk enough if he's still remembering  _that_ lovely scenario. Earth is a thousand shades of gray. Hell is black and white and there is absolutely no in-between because something either  _is_  or  _isn't_. Easy.

Dean misses that. He's always been a soldier, never any sort of commanding officer, and it's so much easier to hand the reins over to someone else and follow as they give him orders. He can live that life even if Sam can't stand it because that's just what he's always  _done_. Hell was all commands, simple and obvious. The most he ever had to come up with on his own was when Alastair told him to take the lead on cutting up a soul, and even then the only question was to slice off the toes or fingers first. Not much of a decision making process involved.

He wants the memories to stop. He'll live on Hell or Earth—he can't bring himself to particularly care which sometimes—but he can't handle this little bit of both shit. Even in Hell, his dreams of Earth were confined to dreams whenever he was asleep and Alastair didn't need him. But here, Hell is in his every waking second, when he sleeps, and when Dean looks at Sam, a flicker of his mouth torn wide around Dean's arm always appears. It won't leave him alone.

The drinking—it doesn't help much. Not really. He's reached total oblivion once already, and the hangover and subsequent beating from Bobby isn't worth going down that road again. When that happened, Bobby almost called an ambulance so they could pump his stomach, but Sam talked him down.

Good old Sam, with his perfect flayed skin.

Dean laughs harshly at himself. Sam doesn't look like that anymore, thank god, because Dean would not be able to handle it. It's alright as long as the image stays firmly in his own mind and nobody else ever knows  _ever_. He can barely think about it without wanting to scrub his own skin clean off to wash away the blood.

There's that one other person who knows, though, because he knows almost every damn thing about Dean that there is to know. Dean doesn't really remember being raised from Hell—doesn't remember much of Hell period, just the highlights—but he knows Castiel must have turned up about the time he was splitting Sam open and screwing Alastair. That's when his memory goes all fuzzy with this bright light before it fades into the darkness of waking up in a coffin. Which, thanks for that, by the way, because that was just a great way to be welcomed back onto Earth, digging his way out of several feet of dirt.

"Fuck," Dean says to himself, "I need..."

Well, he needs something, sure, but even he isn't sure what that is. He needs a mom, for starters, and possibly a brother who tells him what the fuck is going on. Maybe even a hot girl or two, just to provide some entertainment.

But those won't fill the gaping hole in him, the thing that he can't quite acknowledge unless he's somewhere between gently tipsy and completely shitfaced, the point where his inhibitions are gone but his memory is still intact. That kind of thing won't make him feel better about the people he tortured in Hell just to save himself.

And that's what it all comes down to, isn't it? The fact that Dean doesn't deserve to be saved. He made that deal to get Sam's life back; he knew full fucking well what he was getting into. And he...he turned into something down there, something dark and wrathful that makes his stomach turn in the light and his fingers itch for a carving knife during the nighttime. There is something lingering inside him still, a tiny, almost nonexistent seed in his soul that wants to slip his fingers back through Sam's skin and feel the warm mess inside of him. He wants his fist inside Sam in ways he really shouldn't be considering because some of them are even filthier that the things he actually did in Hell.

Hell is full of possibilities. A lot of them get less realistic in the living world, now that Dean thinks about it, but he still knows six different ways to tear Sam's tongue out of his head without disrupting his screaming until it's done. Alastair taught him a lot about that sort of thing, taking people apart according to preference while still dealing out an appropriate amount of pain. Dean was good at that.

And then the memories melt away and Dean maybe falls asleep with the lights off and the moon shining directly on his face from the single window in their motel. All he knows is he wakes up with one mother of a hangover and most of his memory of last night in tatters.

Sam got back sometime during the night. He's snoring like it's his only job now, loud and unapologetic. Dean contemplates hitting him, but just thinking about sitting up makes his head scream louder.

"Dean."

What happens next is a series of unfortunate events. Dean automatically reaches for the knife he keeps under his pillow. It isn't there, of course, because Sam always takes away his weapons when he's drunk and the little bitch knows where Dean hides all his shit. As Dean fails to grab the knife that isn't there, he gets his feet—boots on, of course—tangled in the blanket Sam apparently threw on him and promptly rolls off the bed as he flails.

His knee throbs sympathetically after his head.

There's a sigh from somewhere above him, and Jesus  _fuck_  Dean really hopes that it's Castiel and not some other freak. Cas is mostly harmless, at least.

Looking up blearily, Dean sees the bottom edge of a tan trench coat and puts his head back down again. "What the fuck, Cas?" he growls, voice rough with dehydration.

"Would you like me to heal you so we can talk?" Cas asks.

" _No_ ," Dean tells him because he is a man and he can deal with a hangover. Castiel, however, doesn't seem to understand that this is part of the man code, and he presses two fingers to Dean's temple anyway, getting rid of his hangover like no greasy breakfast Dean has ever met.

"Well. Damn," Dean says, blinking against the sunlight. Sam grumbles a bit and rolls over like the great hunter he was raised to be, completely oblivious to what's going on around him.

"You are still dreaming of Hell," Castiel says, his tone almost implying that he knows this better than Dean.

"Can we not talk about this?" Dean says, scowling.

Cas just stares at him. He stares a lot, Dean is noticing, like some sort of bug-eyed freak

"Right," Dean says dubiously. "I'm going to go get breakfast."

Dean gets one more hard look before Castiel disappears.

He doesn't like it when Cas looks at him like that. There's a weird resonance of Hell in that gaze that Dean doesn't get anywhere else. It's different from the feeling Dean gets in his dreams and memories where he has blood all up his forearms and soot staining his clothes. Castiel feels like something less than peace but more than despair. Unsettling is the most accurate word.

Pulling on a clean shirt, Dean throws his dirty one at Sam's head. "Get up, Sasquatch, you need to start looking for a hunt," he says loudly, kicking at the foot of his bed.

Sam groans and rolls his face off his pillow. "The fuck, man," he says, prissy bitch expression already firmly planted on his face.

"Start research. I'll be back." Sam just blinks at him as Dean swings his jacket onto his shoulders and struts out the door, taking a swig out of his flask with the Impala's keys jingling merrily in his hand.

The sun is warm on his face when he gets outside, and birds are actually singing somewhere off in the distance. It's a May day, all green and breezy with Castiel sitting in Dean's passenger seat, looking vaguely like a nervous squirrel.

"I told you," Dean says as he starts the car with a scowl, "I don't want to talk."

"You're still having nightmares about Hell, Dean. I need to know why."

Dean stares at him in disbelief, because seriously? "It was Hell, dude," he says like Castiel is some sort of brainless asshole. "Fire and brimstone and shit. What do you expect?"

Castiel just gives him this  _look_ , and it's  _weird_  because he looks genuinely anguished for a brief moment. He never shows emotion, not as far as Dean has seen. "You are...not supposed to remember your time there," Cas says slowly, like he has to be careful with his words. Dean parks the car near a diner and waits for him to finish. "I tried to keep most of it from you. You should not be experiencing those memories."

Scowling, Dean says, "Well, you fucked up. And I can handle it, thanks." He slams his door on the way out of the car, cursing to himself about presumptive angelic  _shitheads_  who think he can't deal with a little mental trauma. Dean's whole  _life_  is mental trauma.

But Castiel just does his little teleporting thing and stops Dean in his tracks, so close Dean can feel the displacement of air.

"Cas, personal  _space_ , come on, dude," Dean protests, trying to move Cas away by his shoulders. He ends up stepping back himself when Cas refuses to move. "Seriously, you should be at least this far away from anyone you're talking to. Unless it's a chick and you want to take her home."

Cas tilts his head and creases his brow in the way that means 'why are you still talking?'

"You should not be experiencing those memories," he repeats as if that will change anything. "How much do you remember of Hell?"

Dean shuffles his weight around anxiously. "Not much, man. It's fine, though, nothing I can't handle."

Castiel doesn't look like he's listening to Dean at all. "Maybe I should—" And his hand comes up to Dean's forehead before he can dodge it, pressing against his temple lightly.

It feels like a shockwave, actually, an almost perfect timeline of events that explode from the place where Castiel touched him and out of Castiel's eyes in front of him. Everything in startling clarity tears its way through Dean's mind. That first day in Hell, being chained up and sprawled out and screaming for Sam because he still believed his brother might love him enough to save him. Then Alastair, just after that, his cruel laugh and the feeling of him forcing his way between Dean's thighs.

The way he says, "Dean, baby, don't cry; we're starting this off real nice for you. Only the special ones get this kind of treatment," and then winks at him, his hands scraping along Dean's stomach like he's a piece of meat.

The way Alastair eats him the next day like he's a piece of meat.

And then on and on and  _on_ , through the way Alastair will sometimes pet Dean's hair at the end of the day like he's something special and ask, "Will you join me tomorrow, Dean? It'd be an  _honor_ , let me tell you."

Dean says no. He says no every day for thirty years as the shockwave spreads across his brain, stunning him and sending him to his knees on the asphalt.

That final day, Dean is still crying as Alastair strokes his hand down Dean's cheek like a lover. Dean has never been in this much pain before, not through all the meals he's been or the number of times his bones have been messily torn from his skin, because Alastair has never done  _that_  beforelet the minotaur have their way with him.

"Join me?" Alastair whispers in Dean's ear.

Dean, he says, " _Yes_ , just make it  _stop_."

It stopped for good, it really did, but the next day Dean gently cleaned a body of all of its flesh and lit the bones on fire. More knives. More blood. More guts spilling out of bodies, sometimes into Dean's mouth, and whenever Alastair got too excited, he fucked Dean on top of the body while it bled out.

Every single horrible thing Dean ever did in that place plays out before him again for his personal enjoyment, right up until he stabs Castiel for interrupting Alastair just when Dean was getting to the point where he enjoyed getting fucked.

The final bit is a rush of bright lights and the sensation of rising and rising without end until a jarring stop into darkness wakes Dean up. Their eyes, memory Dean and real Dean, their eyes fly open together.

And the handprint on his arm  _burns_.


	4. Seven Devils

Hellhounds chase Dean through the streets. It's been a while since he's had to run from them. He feels out of practice, something Alastair never would have tolerated, because they're definitely getting closer as Dean skids around a corner and nearly bowls over a young couple walking down the street. "Run!" he screams without turning around to make sure they listen. They probably won't, but that's not Dean's problem.

He can feel the hounds' hot breath on his legs, hear their growling and snapping teeth. Dean spins back into an alleyway and knocks a trash can over behind him in the hopes that it'll slow them down.

Adrenaline lends his legs speed, but there is nothing to give Dean energy to keep going. He is slowing. He's been slowing down for a while, and a hand wraps around his forearm just as he resigns himself to another death by the hounds.

Dean gets a flash of beige before that annoyingly familiar feeling of angel travel overtakes him and dumps them in the hotel room on the first floor. Scrambling away on instinct, Dean pulls ineffectually on his arm because that is a motherfucking Angel of the Lord who could send him back to Hell. Hell was scary.

"Dean," Cas says impatiently, releasing his hand, and Dean yelps as he scrambles to find something to hide behind. "Something's wrong."

"Something's wrong? Something's wrong?!" Dean yells. "You have wings and you just used them to fly! That is not—not  _normal_ , man!"

Tilting his head to the side, Castiel says, "You have always known I have wings."

"You have wings," Dean says mournfully, positioning himself behind a lamp.

"Something's wrong with you."

"I'm dying, Cas," he says. "Well, dying again." He pauses. "I don't want to die again, but I'm gonna. Ghost sickness." Dean sighs to himself and looks up to the ceiling unhappily. "It figures, I guess, that after a lifetime of ganking ghosts, they finally gank me."

"You shouldn't be afraid of dying, Dean," Castiel tells him. "Heaven has work for you."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Dean demands. "Dying is scary, man, you never know when it's gonna happen or how or if you're gonna go to Hell..." Trailing off, Dean shudders. What if he does end up back in Hell? How long will it take the angels to get him out this time?

And he has to wonder if there will even be anything left to get out. Dean, he already wants to go back; he's a shell of himself as it is. More time in Hell and there might be nothing left but the demon welling up inside him. There's nothing to live for on Earth. Sam is...who knows what Sam is doing? Fucking up everything is what Dean knows he's doing, though he isn't clear on the specifics.

"You want to throw me back to Hell," Dean says, slumping against the wall and sliding down until his butt touches the floor.

Cas' brow furrows like he's honestly unsure why Dean thinks that. "I do not wish to throw you back in the pit, Dean. That was merely a threat to show you what will happen if you fail to respect the angels."

Dean waves him off. "Well, I'm dying again, so you won't have to—hey! Don't get any closer, dude; I don't want to die early."

Castiel ignores him, walking closer and sending Dean skittering away until he's trapped in a corner. Cas gives Dean a withering look as he sits down as well. "I'm not here to kill you, Dean. I'm an Angel of the Lord—"

"Exactly!" Dean protests.

"—and I would not kill you or any other human needlessly," Castiel presses on.

Dean whimpers—and goddammit, seriously, why is this disease turning him into a woman—and curls as far into the corner as he can, fidgeting with his fingers. Castiel watches him unflinchingly, and Dean has no idea where his eyes are looking, but it feels like Castiel can see something more than Dean's face when he looks at him. "I'm not going to hurt you," he murmurs. Dean chances a look, and Castiel is weirdly human with his knees pulled up to his chest and arms wrapped loosely around his shins in a relaxed imitation of Dean.

"Yeah, well," Dean says, swallowing around the dryness in his throat, "you can never be too careful."

"Dean, I rebuilt you, body and soul, dragged you from the depths of Hell, and—"

"I know!" Dean shouts, and even he's a little surprised with himself. "I know. But everybody lies, Cas, everybody. You say you're not gonna hurt me and maybe you mean it now, but..." Dean laughs bitterly. "It's always a lie."

"I can assure you," Castiel snaps, "that this is not a lie."

Snorting, Dean shakes his head but says nothing. He sits curled up in his corner, trying to ignore the niggling voice in the back of his head telling him he shouldn't be this close to a creature so powerful. It could be very easy to piss it off, and then where would Dean be?  _Dead_ , that's where.

Fucking ghost sickness.

"Sometimes when I have dreams of Hell you're there," Dean says just to break the silence and, hey, Castiel knows almost everything about him anyway. "We're in the place where I first woke up in Hell and you're chained up with your wings spread out behind you. And I cut them off while you scream about how sorry you are for pulling me out of Hell when I didn't want to go."

There's a quick intake of breath to Dean's left, but he stares straight ahead with his sight unfocused and blurry. He's not crying, dammit.

"I've had that dream five or six times. It gets different every time after that, but I always cut your wings off because then you're not an angel anymore. And humans bleed," Dean says, swinging his head around to look at Castiel. He looks blank, like he's trying too hard to hide his emotions, and it's pathetic. "You bleed so pretty in my dreams, Cas," he breathes.

God, why is he saying this? He has sworn to himself that he will never tell anyone the exact contents of his dreams, how he loves to cut apart all the people he's ever met in his head and throw up this virus in his heart when morning comes. But there's a fear in his stomach right now that he'll die with this ghost disease in his system and everyone will still think he's an honorable person—and he's not, Jesus, no, he's not. He's not worth this. Dean is a monster, it's just that simple.

"You are more than your experiences in Hell, Dean," Castiel says finally.

Dean throws his head back and cracks it against the wall as he laughs. "That shit didn't happen while I was in Hell, Cas," he says, and his head throbs angrily. "I never broke Bobby on the wheel while I was in Hell; I never cut an angel's wings off. It's happening right now in my head and I'm sitting on Earth."

"Do you think I would have risked so many of my brothers for a human if it wasn't worth the cost?" Castiel snaps. "You have been chosen for so much more than convenience, Dean. You are not a monster. You are God's chosen, and my Father would never pick someone less than worthy."

"Maybe God fucked up," Dean says. "Maybe there was a better choice but he fucked it up."

"My Father is not allowed to simply make mistakes—"

"Isn't allowed to or doesn't?" Dean says lowly. Castiel twitches. "I used to think my dad didn't either, but look where his kids ended up."

Castiel stares at him. "No," he snarls suddenly, rising to his feet and pulling Dean up by his shirt. "You will listen to me, Dean Winchester, when I tell you that you are worthy. I thought you would listen, that you would understand, but if you need a couple more years in the pit, I can make that happen."

Dean cries out as the hand fisted in his shirt turns to a bruising grip around his neck. Cas turns around and throws him to the ground effortlessly. Lightning flashes in the room and the hair on the back of Dean's neck rises as Cas' wings flash darkly against the grungy motel wall.

"No," he gasps, but it's too late. Castiel strides over and presses his palm to the center of Dean's forehead, forcing him down as he whispers, "I'll see you in ten years, Dean Winchester," and then Alastair's voice is echoing in his ear—

"Dean. Dean! Dean, what—" and Dean flinches away from the voice as the heat enveloping him fades away, the glow of Hell replaced with faded stains of gray and blue.

It turns out it's just Castiel, still sitting beside him with wide eyes while Dean sobs and tries to sink straight into the wall.

\---

Castiel starts following Dean around much more after that. He stays hidden when Sam is around, which is much more often than it used to be now that he has quit drinking the demon's blood. Every now and then, though, Dean will leave to go eat without Sam and Castiel will sit in silence with him. They don't speak of that time when Dean was dying of the ghost sickness, but Dean will talk about anything that's on his mind.

He tells Castiel about his and Sam's current hunt for a ghost that's murdering children with abusive parents—three are dead already, and they still have no idea who the ghost could have possibly been. Castiel ignores the revulsion in his grace when he hears this—the town they're in can't have a population above two thousand, and to think that three children here alone have been abused is disgusting to him. He wonders, in the darkest moments of his blasphemy, why his Father would choose to save creatures as pathetic as these.

But he sees the best of humans when he is with Dean. He sees the way they hold doors for strangers they will never meet, protect their families with nothing less than their whole beings, and how hard they try to be good and kind because they may be monstrous, but they are not  _monsters_. They are imperfect and flawed just the way God intended them to be, and Castiel can see the part inside them that is worth saving.

And he starts to wonder...what is he doing, following Dean around like this? Why isn't he out on the battlefield with the rest of the warriors, fighting Lucifer's demons, and stopping the breaking of the Seals? He proved himself a capable warrior in Hell ten times over. He could easily pop in and out of battle as needed and still monitor Dean, but Heaven has commanded him to stay out of the way down here. The rest of his garrison is floundering as well with nothing to do but wait for orders while a war goes on.

Castiel doesn't mean to doubt his orders, but it's hard to just accept that this is what the lead up to the apocalypse is supposed to be like. Half the time, he can't even remember the apocalypse is about to happen.

Then Dean does that wonderful, exasperating thing where he's willing to die in order to save the lives of a few thousand people, even if it means that the apocalypse gets one step closer. Castiel is glad he cares about the human race that much, but he doesn't seem to see that that he is worth saving too.

"I told Sam," Dean says drunkenly when Castiel appears next to him in the hotel room. "I told him that I remember Hell."

Castiel nods. He isn't sure what he's supposed to say here—Dean doesn't seem upset, exactly, just a little hollow and numb, like he's consumed too much alcohol and it's swaying his emotions instead of his body. Sam is gone again, but he's just slipped out to get food from the diner down the street, Castiel knows, and Dean pulls a knife out of his bag.

"Do you ever think," he says, and then stops with a snort. "No, of course  _you_  don't. Angel of the Lord, even when you doubt God you'd never think about it."

"About what?" Castiel asks, even though he isn't sure he wants to know.

"About ending it all. Just...it'd be so easy." And he puts the sharp edge of the knife up to his throat, pressing gently. "I don't think anybody knows what it's like, remembering Hell and missing it and wanting to go back there. Every second. I remember every second of it and, god, Cas, the things I used to do to people down there, and I just want—" He presses the knife closer and Castiel's vision narrows down to the razor thin line of blood that appears. He snarls and rips the knife away from Dean's fingers before he can blink, throwing it at the wall and accidentally embedding it in the drywall.

"Do that again," he whispers, his nose an inch away from Dean's, "and I will destroy you so utterly that you will not have a soul to take back to Hell."

Then he brushes his hand over the cut across Dean's throat, smudging the blood and sewing him back up like he always will, and leaves.

Castiel doesn't return until he receives orders. Dean infuriates him with the way he cares so little about his own life, like it's something to just throw away when he gets tired of it. He is worth so much more than that, but Castiel just can't stand around watching him drink and stare longingly at his weapons.

When they meet again...Anna is there. She's so close to being back again, and Castiel wants nothing more than to wrap her up in his wings and ask her how she could ever abandon him. But he and Uriel have orders from Heaven to search her out and kill her. She is fallen, an abomination, and an outcast from Heaven. When the order comes through, he knows nothing but the need to punish her. Dean doesn't matter then.

\---

Dean assumed that the angels were sort of the good guys. They're dicks, sure, but their intentions are pretty good considering they want to save the world and he can't begrudge them that.

But he can see the way that Cas looks at Anna like she's nothing more than an assignment, and even Dean can see straight through his words.

Then Alastair appears.

Dean knows it's him this time, recognizes the vessel and the way he talks down to them all. Dean wants to fall to his knees and kiss his way up Alastair's thighs—not because he loves him, but because this is Dean's king. This is Dean's maker, and the flash of homesickness that carves through him is equally deep and sickening. He wants Alastair to chain him to the floor with all his unforgiving spreader bars and carve his art into Dean's skin while he takes him hard and fast right in front of the angels and his little brother, and maybe Alastair will let him open Sam up again.

Seeing Alastair is like the sweetest relief Dean hasn't felt since he agreed to get pulled off the rack. He almost screams at Castiel to stop when he tries to exorcise Alastair. Almost, but not quite because it turns out in the end, Alastair is nothing more than disappointed in the ugly, worthless human Dean has become.

He ends up telling Sam a few things because of that. They're weighing more heavily at the front of his mind than usual lately, and sometimes it's just nice to get it out. Sam's the first third party to really hear anything about Hell.

Then, actually, the angels captured Alastair, and it's really funny except it's totally  not—Dean just happens to be really, brain-destroyingly drunk. It's hilarious.

\---

Dean stares at his needle and doesn't try to hide the smile on his face. This whole thing is practically just a way for Dean to show Alastair that he's learned so well and now it's time for show and tell, because he's been dreaming of this for years. His humanity is already slipping away. That's not his problem, though—he warned Cas how this would turn out. Dean just hopes maybe the angels will care enough to pick up his pieces when his job is complete.

For now, he stands off to Alastair's side, grabs his wrist, and pushes the needle into the vein there. Alastair screams—Dean figures the holy water must be like fire in his blood, and he licks over the injection site when Alastair goes quiet again. Dean wants him to raise his chin and whisper, "Look at you, sweetheart, you're not such a disappointment after all."

But he doesn't say anything, just flops there lifelessly as Dean falls to his knees and presses his face to the inside of Alastair's knee. "Please," he wants to say, "please make me whole again." He's doomed to have entire conversations in his head with his king and even if no one hears them, Dean gets a sick rush of pleasure just from imagining the things he could do to Alastair here on Earth.

Or the things Alastair could do to Dean.

"You ready?" he says, raising his eyes. Alastair is looking down at him. His eyes are blue and Dean's stomach rolls unpleasantly because the otherworldly quality in them reminds him a bit too much of Cas. He doesn't want to cut Alastair's wings off; he wants to unfold them and hold on tight as they fly back to Hell to collect the missing part of Dean.

He takes Alastair's silence as acquiescence, stabbing the needle into his thigh and injecting the rest of the holy water. Alastair throws his head back violently, teeth grinding together as Dean tries to kiss it better. He smells like sulfur and tastes like fire.

He rises to his feet. "You got a name for me?"

\---

"C'mon, Alastair, just tell me who's killing the angels. It'll be all over as soon as you give me that name," Dean says from where he's on his knees again. He slashes another line along Alastair's calf and dips his bloody fingers into the pile of salt on the ground. Nuzzling his face in Alastair's crotch, Dean presses the salt into the wounds, smiling as Alastair grunts at the pain.

What Dean learned in Hell that he doesn't want Cas to see is this—the way you sometimes have to walk the line of pleasure and pain so that each twitch from one to the other is jarring. Cas probably knows about this the same way he knows about everything Dean did in Hell, but Dean doesn't want him to see it firsthand, not the way Dean wants to open Alastair's pants and take him into his mouth while carving up his legs with a razorblade and salty hands. Dean needs that to belong to himself and no one else.

"Give me—the name," Dean breathes, pressing his face closer and darting away as Alastair's hips jerk up. "Then I'll take you off this rack and let you go."

Alastair laughs. "Then how long before the angels get in here, sweetheart?"

"I'd let you go," Dean murmurs, looking up at him. "You throw me into the wall and escape; they'd never have to know. But first I need the name."

"If you can't say something nice," Alastair hisses, "don't say nothing at all. Put your mouth to better use, boy, before I get bored."

Dean thinks about this—he  _could_ , he really could, and demons like Alastair are a little too used to pain anyway. But he shouldn't lose too much of himself here, so Dean just rises and presses his salt covered thumbs into Alastair's irises.

God, he's missed the sound of screaming.

" _Pathetic_ ," Alastair spits when his breathing calms, curling his lip at Dean. "You teach a boy for ten years and hope he learns something, but  _no_. The minute he gets back to Earth he turns soft again and—"

Dean shoves his fingers in Alastair's mouth, fitting his fingers along the grooves in the sides of his tongue. It's too bad he doesn't have time to experiment.

\---

"Give me a name," Dean says from his spot on his knees. It's pretty much the only place he wants to be, especially now that he's got Alastair's spit shined dick right in front of his lips. He's running out of options and ideas—he wants to do so many things, but they're not all possible if Dean needs Alastair to still be able to think and talk. Hell would be a much better battleground than this.

"Now, why would I do that," Alastair says, biting down sharply on the 't,' "when you could finish the job you're doing down there?"

Dean can't argue with that, but he sticks another iron pin in Alastair's stomach as he goes back down on him all the same.

\---

He doesn't know where Sam is right now. Fuck, Dean isn't even sure he knows where  _he_  is right now. It's another shitty motel room—and it's just fucking  _always_  a shitty-ass motel room, isn't it?—with peeling wallpaper and questionable stains on the floor, but all Dean wants is for Castiel to get his ass over here. He is so fucking sick of angels disappearing when they want to, like right after dumping life-changing news on a human because, oh,  _by the way_ , you started the apocalypse, Dean-o, can I get a quote about that for the article?

"Goddammit, Cas!" Dean swears, slapping his palm on the kitchen counter.

"You shouldn't take my Father's name in vain, Dean," Castiel says from behind.

Dean whirls around, hand going to the gun tucked into his coat on instinct. "Fuck, Cas, don't sneak up on me like that."

Castiel just stares at him.

"What?" Dean snaps.

"You shouldn't think so little of yourself, Dean," Cas says instead of a real answer.

"You sound like Sam," Dean says petulantly. "You tell me to think about myself, but you never fucking realize that I already am. I'm not strong enough to stop the apocalypse, Cas, I'm not even strong enough to stay on this Earth, I think. It's not that I don't care about myself, I'm just the only damn person here who can see the facts. And the fact is that I  _can't_ —"

"But you  _will_ ," Cas snarls. "You  _will_  stop the apocalypse because you are the only one who can. That is the reason you were brought back and I will not sit here and listen to you whine about how much you miss Hell when there is a functioning world right in front of you to save."

"And what are you gonna do if I don't?" Dean asks, stepping closer. "If I don't save the world, just what are you going to do?"

Cas growls and says, "You are bluffing, Dean, you won't leave this world to burn."

"What if I did? What if I just...?" And he pulls his gun out and puts it right under his chin, disengaging the safety and putting his finger on the trigger.

"I can guarantee you," Castiel says, immediately snatching the gun out of Dean's hand and throwing it away, "that you will get nowhere. You will come back. The only person in the world who can send you back to Hell is  _me_."

"So, what, you gotta smite me?" Dean asks, laughing at the irony of it all. "I bet I could make you so angry you'd be chomping at the bit to send me back."

"You won't have to work hard at that," Cas says, his hands almost visibly shaking in anger. A slow smirk snakes its way across Dean's face. "You are the most infuriating human I have ever seen pass across this Earth, and some days, Dean Winchester, I swear to you that I just want to—"

"Want to  _what_?" Dean says when Cas cuts himself off. "Come on, do it, Cas.  _Smite me_ , or whatever the hell it is that you dicks do to humans who won't bow to you." He has long broken the personal space rule he spent so long impressing on Castiel. Spreading his arms, Dean says, "Here I am; I won't even fight. Send me straight back to hell, Cas _tiel_."

Castiel snaps his hands up and shoves one against Dean's collarbone to force him to bend back against the tiny motel kitchen counter. A light bulb above them explodes into sparks. "Is this what you want, Dean?" he asks, the heel of his other palm pressing on Dean's forehead. "Is this all you think you mean to me? I lost my closest  _brother_  just for you—"

"Yeah, and don't you just wanna off me for that?" Dean retorts in that insufferable way of his, the one that makes Castiel want to hit him because he is a stupid  _ass_. "An eye for an eye, Cas!"

"You are have committed every sin I know, Dean," Castiel growls, backing off and throwing Dean bodily against the wall. He holds Dean there with his grace, too furious to look him in the eyes. "You have lusted and been greedy for the money you take so freely from others, let gluttony consume your mind. You refuse to believe in my Father even though all evidence says he exists; you have envied the people you saved for how they will return to a normal life. In hell you were wrathful and now you use your anger against every creature that dares cross your path.

"And now, above  _all_ ," he shouts, wrapping his hands around Dean's throat as the television in the other room shorts out, "now that you are broken and your soul is burning itself out, you are too full of a stupid, worthless thing called  _pride_  to reach out and realize there is someone out there who is willing to help."

Castiel drags Dean away from the wall and pushes him away. He says, "I will return when I can stand to look at your face without  _destroying_  anything."


	5. Summertime

"So what you're trying to tell me," Dean says slowly, "is that this ghost is going after farmers who've fucked their cows."

Sam visibly winces, but he nods and gestures at his laptop. "It's the only pattern, Dean. There are how many farmers in this area using that road and only three of them in the last thirty-five years turn up dead? The first guy, Mickey Jones, he got fined for, um, fornicating with his milk cow and turned up dead two weeks later. Then there are rumors about the most recent victim getting a little something on the side in his barn, and I'm willing to bet the second guy had the same thing going down, only nobody knew." He shrugs at the screen.

"Well, that's disgusting." Dean takes another swig of beer and wishes it were something stronger. Shaking his head, he says, "Remember when we used to deal with normal things, Sammy?"

Sam snorts. "Dean, we've never dealt with normal things."

Sighing, Dean rolls off the bed. "Whatever. We got any leads on who this ghost  _was_?"

"I have a couple," Sam says, leaning back in his chair as he finally takes his eyes off the computer. "I'm gonna need to look at the local archives though before I confirm anything."

"Great. Research."

"Dean, you should...you should ask around," Sam says hesitantly. "Y'know, see if we got any other potential victims to worry about."

"What, you don't want me to suffer with you? Weird, man," Dean says. He means it as a joke, but Sam's face does that twitchy thing it does when Dean is right on the money about something being off. "The hell, Sam?"

Sam sighs and flails his hands while Dean judges him harshly. "You've just been acting weird lately, Dean. I'll get more done if I don't have to spend half my time listening to—"

"I have not been  _weird_ ," Dean says because even if he knows he's been a tad despondent, he needs to defend his honor.

"Look, I get it, man, I do. You finally started getting over Hell and then the angels just tossed you back to the wolves," Sam says, his voice dripping sympathy. "I think you should talk to Cas about that, though, instead of avoiding it like it never happened."

"There's nothing to talk about," Dean snaps. There really isn't, not after the way Cas left last time they talked. "I did it and it's over now."

Sam gives him that broken puppy face that means he knows Dean is lying but he's going to let him get away with not talking about it because he doesn't want to fight. "Just..."

"Whatever, bitch," Dean says, grabbing the keys and skittering out the door so he can get the last word and get away from the  _feelings_  floating in the air. "You can walk to the library."

"Jerk!" Sam shouts after him, but Dean figures he can let that go.

He sits behind the wheel for a while, watching Sam leave through the rearview mirror. No use going to a bar. Dean's already mostly drunk and it's not helping the hangover he has from last night, and he sure as hell isn't going to hang around a diner to listen in on the local gossip in hopes that maybe someone will drop a hint that their neighbor's fucking their pig or something. That's just  _wrong_.

God, he even wishes Cas was here. It's been a few days since the— _incident_ , and that way they could at least sit around and brood together, assuming that's what Cas does when he's not looking after humans. He imagines it can't be all that interesting—Cas is kind of a stick in the mud, no offense to him, Dean thinks as he watches some hot redhead and her mother load up their car with an excessive amount of luggage for two people.

"Hello, Dean."

" _Jesus,_  Cas!" Dean shouts as he jumps and bangs his knee against the door.

"You shouldn't blaspheme," Cas says, as if Dean gives a shit.

"You should quit sneaking up on people then!" Dean says, scowling. "Try knocking from outside, man, jeez."

"I thought you'd prefer me to not be seen appearing out of thin air," Castiel says dryly, and it takes Dean a minute to realize that he's actually trying to use sarcasm.

Dean looks at him—he's disorderly looking as usual, like a stressed out businessman with a big project due the next day that could guarantee him a promotion to the big-time if he does well. It's a weird look for Cas because he's none of that. Angels probably don't even care about promotions as long as they uphold the Word and destroy the demons, blah blah blah, whatever it is they do up in Heaven.

"Let's go for a drive," Dean says after a beat, twisting the key in the ignition and putting it in gear before Cas can object. He doesn't say anything though, just stares out the front at the partially rotted motel wall in front of them. "Wait, you don't have any soul-crushing apocalypse info you need to tell me, right?"

"No, Dean, I am not here under orders" is what Cas says instead. Dean shrugs, because while he didn't say that exactly, he meant it. And then "You shouldn't drive while you're inebriated."

Dean rolls his eyes. "I'm barely tipsy."

Cas doesn't answer, just does that thing where he draws his shoulders a little bit closer to his neck and radiates displeasure. It's guaranteed to make Dean want to hit him.

"So, uh, how's the fight going?" Dean asks when they're miles away from anything. "The stopping the breaking of the Seals and everything?"

"I don't know," Cas says, looking down at his knees. "I haven't heard anything since Uriel."

"And he's not exactly the most reliable source of information," Dean says with a sigh. He pulls off the road next to a cornfield in the middle of nowhere. "Don't really feel like driving anymore."

Castiel says, "I know very little about what's happening in Heaven right now. Usually we are...updated even when there are no plans but to continue waiting. But there has only been silence."

"Yeah?" Dean says. "You, uh, talk to Anna at all?"

"No," Cas says shortly.

"Alright then," Dean mutters. "I won't talk about her."

"Dean," he says, staring out at the endless road and rows of corn. "She wants me to rebel against Heaven. She wants me—" Castiel stops himself as Dean looks on. When he speaks again, real emotion clouds his voice and it sets Dean off guard. " _I_  want to rebel against Heaven," he whispers. "I'm thinking about disobedience and how I never should have let you into a room with that  _demon_  in it."

"Cas..." Dean trails off; he doesn't know what to say. This goes so far beyond anything Dean knows—this is Cas wanting to turn his back on his family, and for what? For  _what,_ exactly, a demon boy and his Hell-broke brother?

"I wouldn't be the first," Cas says, and Dean realizes he accidentally said all of that aloud. "I'm not the first angel to consider disobedience and I certainly won't be the last."

"Trust me, Cas, down here? It's not worth it. It's really not."

"I believe an act of rebellion would require me to make that decision myself," Cas says, and he doesn't sound annoyed or terrified about it, just curious and a little apprehensive. It's like he's interested in making a decision for himself for once, one that's not mitigated by higher orders or God's supposed will.

"Is it worth it then?" Dean asks. It's the same damn question he keeps asking himself, but he thinks it might help if he hears someone else say it.

"I think it might be." Cas is silent for a moment. "But I can't make that decision for you either," he points out gently. "I know you're searching, too, Dean, for something to hold onto. But we have to figure it out ourselves."

"I'm not searching for anything, Cas. I'm trying to  _forget_."

A hand touches his shoulder, and Dean shivers when he realizes if they were on opposite sides of the car, Cas would be touching the handprint he left on Dean. "You and I share a profound bond, Dean," he says, and his eyes are like glowing moons when Dean glances into them. "I have seen you at your worst, and even if I have faith in nothing, I can believe in you."

"Don't do that, Cas," Dean says roughly, shrugging his hand off. "I'm not—I can't climb out of the pit, man. You pulled my soul out but you can't drag my mind out of there. You've tried to and it didn't work. I can't get out," he whispers, drawing a shuddering breath, "because it's always there. And you shouldn't believe in that." Dean feels ridiculous just saying that—he doesn't know why he always ends up telling Cas the things that lurk in the dark corners of his mind

But Cas just shakes his head, and his disapproval curls thickly in the air. Dean swallows and throws open his door. Cas doesn't flinch as he climbs out of the car, heading toward the trunk and opening it out of habit. He scowls at the mess—Sam had refused one change when Dean got back from Hell, and that was reverting to Dean's much more sensible organizational system. This way, guns are on one side, knives in their corner, salt bunched together. As far as Dean's concerned, it's not nearly as helpful as having the weapons they're most likely to need right on top.

In a fit of defiance, Dean starts reorganizing. Sam can bitch all he wants, but this system never failed Dad; if Miss Samantha has that much of a problem with it, he can fix it himself.

Cas appears behind him, way too close to Dean because he can't figure out the personal space thing. Dean ignores him, sagging against the Impala. He waits for Cas to say something, anything to break the silence, but he stays quiet.

"The first time I looked into your eyes in Hell," Cas eventually says, "I was amazed. I could describe the exact shade, shape, and size of each of your eyes, but nothing quite compares to looking at you on your level." Dean's chin thumps down to his chest and his hands clench tighter on the edge of the trunk. "I saw straight into your soul, Dean. I know better than anyone what you are truly like, and I believe that you have the ability to make the right choice."

Dean's practically sandwiched between Cas and his car when he turns around. "How do you know I'm gonna make the right choices? I fuck things up, Cas. I always do."

"I  _don't_  know," Castiel says, his chin high and his eyes wild. "But for some reason...I have faith in you."

Sighing, Dean slumps down so he's sitting on the car. It's bad for the suspension, but he can't even bring himself to care right now.

"So what do you think about a ghost killing off farmers who're bangin' their cows?"

\---

"We should go do something," Dean says to the ceiling a week later, turning his flask around in his hands absently. Castiel follows his gaze, but he doesn't understand what has Dean so fascinated. "There's gotta be a—a bar or a movie theatre somewhere around here."

"You have alcohol and a television in here," Castiel says. He doesn't see the point in leaving the motel room if there's nothing different to be done outside of it.

"It's the idea of it," Dean argues. He makes an aggravated noise and tosses the flask to the side. "Hey," he says suddenly, raising his head to look at Castiel speculatively, "do you know how to shoot pool?"

That's how Castiel ends up in the back of a dive bar with smoke hanging in the air in a thick haze while Dean does something with a cube and a couple of sticks, saying, "I mean, I don't care if he wants to have alone time with Ruby or whatever. But he could at least tell me where he's going in case something weird happens."

"I could easily find him," Castiel says.

"Can't rely on you for everything, Cas," Dean tells him. "Anyway, c'mere. How good are you at geometry? Or do they not teach that in angel school?"

"I am more than proficient in mathematics and spatial reasoning," Castiel answers. "Are you as well?"

Dean shrugs. "Didn't do so well at it in school, but I got a GED no problem. Now take this." He hands Castiel one of this sticks. "It's called a cue."

Castiel stares at him blankly. This is no  _point_  to this. It won't help them stop Lucifer from rising, get rid of Dean's memories of Hell, or sort out Castiel's loyalty dilemma. This is an utterly pointless exercise and Castiel wants to let it run his course while he drinks in the sight of Dean at ease. He's still guarded, still slightly subdued, but Castiel has never seen him firsthand act so blatantly at peace. Castiel can't quite bring himself to want to leave, so he imitates the various things Dean teaches him even though he can't imagine them ever becoming useful. Dean lights up like the sun, though, and Castiel wants that look to stay on his face.

"There you go, man, you've got the hang of it." Dean grins at him, easy and peaceful.

"I'm not sure why I need to learn this," Castiel says, straightening his back.

"You guys never do anything for fun up in Heaven?" Dean asks, shaking his head at himself before he's done talking. "I guess you're not really the friendliest bunch. Uh, no offense."

"We don't have things like this." Angels have their orders and each other, and that's it. Castiel never wanted anything else in Heaven or stationed on Earth, but he's starting to think that was because he never knew there was something else to want.

Dean has an inscrutable expression on his face. "Right," he says with a strong air of finality, setting his beer on the poor table, "you need to relax. Trench coat, suit coat,  _off_ , for one. Come on, now," he adds at Castiel's withering look. He shrugs them off with precision, feeling slightly off-kilter without the familiar weight resting on his shoulders.

"Roll up your sleeves," Dean says, throwing his own jacket and Castiel's coats over a chair. "And you can probably get rid of this, too," he says gruffly, tugging at the ends of Castiel's tie and sliding it off his neck.

Castiel stops breathing for a minute, and he stares at the space Dean occupied long after he turns away with the tie.

"Sleeves, Cas," Dean says, tapping his elbow as he slides back to where he left his beer. "Then we're gonna play a game for real."

Absently, Castiel rolls his sleeves up as Dean starts lining balls up inside a triangular frame, rambling on about racking up and breaking. Castiel only pays half a mind, selfishly admiring his own handiwork in the way Dean's skin stretches over his bones. This is the most he has seen Dean be at peace with the world, unharmed by the memories of Hell inside him. Now, the only thing in him is confidence in the motions he's gone through thousands of times before.

"I'll break," Dean says, flashing a smile. "Helps to see it first.

He watches Dean lean over the table gracefully, swinging his pool stick up to knock a white ball against the triangle formation at the other end. Castiel doesn't understand at all, doesn't see the point, but this makes Dean happy. He'll do anything to see Dean's eyes crinkle in the corners just that little bit.

Castiel can't erase Hell—he was far too ambitious in thinking he could—but he can be there during the fallout.

"Okay, here," Dean says, pointing at the table. "I hit the yellow one in, so that means I have to try and sink the other solid colors. Hit 'em in the pockets," Dean clarifies hastily. "That means you have stripes and you gotta try to hit them all in before me."

"There are an uneven number of balls," Castiel points out. There is no logic in that, and he isn't about to do anything that involves an arbitrary advantage for one person.

Dean just snorts. "Magic eight ball, man, you have to know that much." Castiel has no idea what he's talking about, and it must show on his face because Dean sighs at him. "The black one, number eight, you hit that one in last. If you do it before you hit all your other balls in the pockets, you lose." He pokes Castiel's shin with his pool cue. "Take your shot now."

Castiel sidles around the table quietly. The other patrons aren't paying them any attention, filling the air with the buzz of conversation instead. Suddenly wishing Balthazar was there to mock this entire situation in the back of his mind, Castiel assumes the position Dean taught him, leaning over the table and bracing his hip against it. His pool stick slides over his thumb, under the first finger, and over the middle as he aims it at the cue ball. He can do this much, at least.

"Whoa, Cas, where you aimin'?" Dean laughs. "Look, you got the fourteen ball lined up, but you want to sink it, not hit it into the wall. Here, like this."

And he slides against Castiel's back so effortlessly, his hands wrapping around Castiel and turning him slightly to the left. He's saying something, low growl right in Castiel's ear, but all Castiel knows are the points where they're touching, even few and far between as they are. Dean is  _warm_ , a steady presence hovering just behind him, and if Castiel leaned backwards, his back would be pressed to Dean's chest.

"Then you just hit it and hope you didn't fuck anything up." Dean sounds pleased with himself as he backs off.

"Oh," Castiel says. "Um."

"Um?" Dean laughs. "This is the easy part, Cas."

He hits it too hard, drawing awkwardly back and overshooting so the ball ricochets off the corners of the pocket instead of tapping one gently and falling in. Castiel doesn't think his mind is still attached to his vessel, as if he's floating outside and merely using its sense.

"Close. Gotta figure out how to use your strength, eh?" Dean says approvingly.

Nodding, Castiel steps back. He couldn't open his mouth to speak if he knew what to say.

Dean pockets two balls before declaring his third shot "pathetic and shitty. Son of a bitch." He rucks a hand through his hair in agitation. "Please do better than me, Cas."

Castiel fumbles his way through their first game, unused to the stick in his hands and still shivering from the heat of Dean's breath on his ear.

But the second, he's deadly.

"God _damn_ , Cas, you sure you never played before?" Dean sounds awed as Castiel sinks four in a row, only missing the fifth when Dean places a gentle hand on his lower back as he walks behind Castiel.

"Quite, Dean," he says dryly. "It's only mathematics."

"Yeah, well, not all of us were top students in Calc III," Dean says. "You and Sam, sure, but I'm good." He knocks a ball in, gets overzealous on the second, and misses. "Dammit."

Castiel clears the table, knocking the eight ball in without a second thought. Dean looks impressed.

"Angel mojo works for pool. Huh." Dean takes his pool stick, saying, "Well, I'm not going to win any. Let's get drunk."

"I do not believe that I can," Castiel says doubtfully.

"Then I'll get drunk and teach you how to hustle," Dean says, glancing over his shoulder. "People will eat that shit right up from you; you just scream innocent and from out of town."

"Isn't that—?"

"Illegal? Nah. Morally wrong?" Dean tilts his head to the side contemplatively. "Probably. Listen, Cas, man, you don't know victory until you've won a drunk man's first born and everything else he owns in a game of poker, pool, or what the hell ever."

Castiel's grace flares in anger at that, but he keeps his mouth shut. This is exactly what he meant that Dean is greedy. He understands that Sam and Dean don't have any consistent income and they can't simply forgo food or gas for the Impala. But there's needing money for survival, and then they're taking money because it's funny and embarrassing for the other guy.

"Four shots," Dean says to the bartender, flicking a couple of bills on the bar without acknowledging Castiel's stony silence. Then to Castiel, he says, "Least you can do is drink with me."

Taking in the sight of the rundown bar and Dean's eyes hungrily running up and down a nearby woman's body, Castiel thinks,  _If this is rebellion, it's not that great so far._

_\---_

Nine shots, three beers, and four fifths of whiskey later, Dean is drunk. Castiel is not.

"So what I don't get," Dean says, because drunkenness makes him inquisitive and he doesn't get a lot of things tonight, "is how you can be my 'guardian angel'"—insert air quotes with hands, something Castiel doesn't get—"and still have no idea how to play pool. I've been playin' my whole life. Aren't you s'posed to be watchin' that shit?" Dean's talking just a little bit too loudly, enough to have the bartender glancing over at their corner occasionally with a wary expression on his face.

Castiel barely suppresses an eye roll, a disturbingly human habit he's picked up around Dean. "Angels exist in a different plane of existence, Dean. It's not that simple."

"Simplify it for me."

"I see...you. Your soul," Castiel says haltingly. This isn't the kind of thing you can just  _dumb down_ so a human can understand it. He could better explain this with math, but that would probably confuse Dean even more.

But Dean has other plans—he's very distractible when drunk. "Aww, Cas, flirting, really? Come on, man." He looks put out for all of two seconds before slamming his palm on the bar excitedly. "Here, I've got one. Hey, baby, did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?"

"Dean," Castiel says. He's starting to get irritated now. "You're drunk."

"Hell yeah, I am. Haven't been this gone in  _ages_ , Cas, 's  _great_." Dean grins at him. He doesn't look Hell-worn anymore, but he doesn't look like he's fully conscious either. Castiel decides he doesn't like Dean when he's drunk. His eyes glaze over, mouth slackening, and his personality turns utterly repulsive. Castiel has heard the term 'slobbering drunk' before, but he never really understood it until now. Dean is a mess and it disgusts him.

"Hey—hey!" Dean yells, waving at the bartender to get his attention. "Two more shots for me 'n Cas here, man!" He grins.

"No," Castiel says suddenly, trapping Dean's wrist in his grip. "I'm taking you back to Sam; you've had enough to drink."

"What the hell?" Dean says, gaping at him with one corner of his mouth drooping lower than the other. "You can't just—"

"I can and I  _will_ ," Castiel says, jaw clenching as he forces the words out as he drags Dean forcibly away from the bar and out onto the street. Dean will probably have a bruise on his wrist tomorrow, but Castiel can't summon any emotion other than a harsh rush of vindictive pleasure.

Sam squawks when Castiel appears in the motel room with Dean stumbling at his side, face turning slightly green. Castiel takes pity on him—he's angry, not  _heartless_ —and brushes his fingers against Dean's forehead, laying him on the bed carefully. He won't wake up until dawn tomorrow.

With that, he nods at Sam because they're sort of on good terms now, even through the obvious stink of demon blood surrounding him, and flies to an empty stretch of road somewhere along a Wisconsin highway to await...anything.

Castiel feels unbalanced and unsettled. Everything he just did was the antithesis of what an angel should do on Earth, and it's wrong, he knows it's wrong, but he just...doesn't care. Not when Dean's face lights up when Castiel figures out he hates the taste of whiskey but can do shots without batting an eye, or how Dean looks younger in the soft light of a bar, like the years of Hell have melted away. His soul sparks just a tiny bit brighter then, glowing a little lighter as if it's remembering what it's like to live outside of Hell's shadow.

Castiel can still feel all the places Dean touched him, too—bumping Castiel's arm more and more the drunker he got, his hands repositioning Castiel at the pool table. In their true forms, angels don't have the concrete feeling of touch that humans have, and the sensation of warm skin and glancing touches against his vessel is foreign to Castiel. They sink into him, marking his skin in a way that feels visible to the rest of the world. He hates how human it feels to be on Earth in this vessel, messy and uncoordinated, but there's a certain charm to it.

Dean is the same way. He is a hopeless drunk with an insatiable desire for women and sex and a shining soul swirling around and encompassing all of that. Dean is painstakingly, irreversibly, utterly  _human_. Castiel shouldn't love him as much as he does, with a fierce pride and a stunningly strong hope that Dean will break his mind out of Hell. Castiel wants to be there for that—he wants to guide Dean out of his sins and teach him that there is a way to live with his memories.

There is nothing wrong with Dean, not on the outside. His mind is all over the place, though, and it's anyone's guess whether it can be put back together again. But Castiel will be damned if he doesn't try. That man is his charge, his life, the reason he is here—that man is the reason he's considering rebellion. Castiel isn't here to rebel for some cheap trick who holds his ground once and quietly complies the rest of the time. He has a healthy, vested interest in Dean's sanity.

And, really, for more nights like these without the horror of the apocalypse hanging over their heads and Dean's honest grin twitching at the corners of his mouth, Castiel can rebel against heaven. At least for a little while.


	6. Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums

Castiel isn't expecting Dean's lack of reaction when he flies into the motel room. Sam is off to unknowable places and the stink of demon blood has died down slightly. At least the smell is stale. Dean, though, has his feet kicked up on the bed and a mostly empty glass of whiskey in hand. Castiel is vaguely confused by the fact that Dean is actually using a glass.

"So who the hell is Zachariah?" Dean gripes at him.

"He is my superior," Castiel answers, confused. "He took Uriel's position." It's a source of contention for Hester in particular, because their garrison joined another that had dwindled in its numbers as well. Hester claims they were fine and didn't need to be treated as if they were weak, even with Castiel getting too close to the humans.

Dean snorts and turns the volume on the television up, swallowing the rest of his drink and setting the glass aside. "Great."

"Have you seen him, Dean?" Castiel says, a weird twist of unsettledness trickling into his vessel's stomach. He doesn't understand the feeling.

"Son of a bitch took my memories and put me in a desk job for a week," Dean says. "So I'd say I've seen him, yeah."

"What did he want?" Castiel says, moving closer. This means that Heaven is paying attention. Heaven is sending other angels—better angels than Castiel because their loyalty is not being ripped to shreds—and that means...that means Castiel is not escaping scrutiny.

"Said he wanted to teach me a lesson. That I should 'play my part,' whatever the fuck that means." Dean sighs and grabs a gun out of the duffle bag next to him. He takes it apart with agitated flicks of his wrists and starts cleaning it.

"Heaven no longer trusts me," Castiel says, his eyes gazing at the wall above Dean's head. "They sent Zachariah because the angels want you to follow Heaven's orders."

"Thought that was your job," Dean says while he stares determinedly at the television.

"Does this conversation sound like I'm making progress?" Castiel growls. "If I can't convince you, Dean, they will simply send other angels. One of them will break you."

Dean laughs harshly. "Gotta tell you, Cas, they can't. There's nothing left to break up here." He taps his head with the butt of the gun, turning his gaze on Castiel for the first time that night.

"You don't know what they will try, they—"

"They can try whatever they want," Dean says calmly. "It won't work."

"You can't be sure of that!" Cas snarls. He can't help the anger; there is terror working through his mind. Anything that comes after Dean that way will be after Castiel next and—oh.

That's self-preservation he's feeling. Castiel's never felt that before.

Dean shrugs. He doesn't seem to care about any of this. "I've been broken already. You can't break what's already broken," he insists.

"Hell is irrelevant, Dean, this—"

"Cas, you need to quit  _talking_ about that." Dean stares at him. "I'm over that; I'm  _fine_ ," he insists, standing up. "Jesus, Cas, it was  _you_. The second you brought back my memories and the minute I stepped into that room with Alastair, you had me broken, okay? I was—fine, I was living, but you put me back in that mindset and I  _snapped_  again."

"No," Castiel snaps, "it's not the same, you don't understand—"

"I understand perfectly," Dean says with an easy shrug of his shoulders. "You did it. And you did part of it on their orders, but you don't live under that anymore, at least not in your mind. The rest was just you." He stops, swallowing as he looks directly at Castiel. "I promise, Cas, I won't bow to Heaven. They can't break me."

The world just...stops. Castiel, he never meant to do this—he is supposed to fix Dean, not break him. Dean, though, is broken, and Castiel doesn't know why he couldn't see the entirety of it until now. It's so obvious, the way he downs alcohol like water and sometimes has to pull himself out of a daze in the middle of a conversation. Castiel knew he was hurting, he did, but in that moment, Castiel realizes what he himself had to do with it. Dean would never have remembered most of Hell without him, would never have tortured again without him. Angels don't feel the sort of things Dean Winchester does, and Castiel knows he was wrong to be so oblivious and blind.

Dean wanders across the room to dig out a bottle of alcohol, maybe brandy, and completely ignores the concept of a glass this time in favor of taking a swig straight out of the bottle. They both know it won't turn him completely numb, but it's the first time Castiel realizes fully what he's done to make Dean want that numbness.

"I will fix you," Castiel promises, his throat oddly dry. It doesn't feel like enough. He wants to say more to make Dean understand how much he truly means this, but there is nothing else to say and no words under the sun that can make Dean  _get_  this. Castiel means it in everything he is—four words and he doesn't need anything else because they are the only truth. "I will fix you, Dean," he repeats because it feels stronger that way. Dean just looks at him, dead-eyed.

"Sure, Cas."

Later that night, Dean will look Castiel in the eye and say he's glad Castiel isn't such a dick anymore and, actually, he rather likes him. But Dean isn't drunk enough to say that yet.

\---

Dean is at a bar. Castiel doesn't know why that fact is significant, but it sticks out in his mind. Dean also doesn't know Castiel is here yet; he's off playing pool with a whole group of paunchy businessmen and Castiel doesn't want to interrupt. He's not in the mood to be dragged into another game where the only things that make sense are the mathematical equations he uses to calculate how to win. It's not much of a challenge.

He moves closer, sticking close to the dark wall where no one is paying him any attention. Dean is playing a short, balding man, chalking up his stick smoothly. He's sweating—the man, not Dean—and keeps glancing at the other men clustered together off to the side. He also happens to be drunk, Castiel notes with a sense of displeasure, far more so than Dean is.

"One more game, I swear, here," he says desperately, opening his wallet and throwing a handful of bills on the table as Dean knocks the eight ball in.

Castiel doesn't understand what this man is trying to prove, but Dean does, and he's going to take that as far as he can.

This is wrong, Castiel realizes as he watches Dean wordlessly gather the money and put it on the side of the pool table. He smirks at the group of men while his opponent turns away, jabbing a thumb at the man and miming putting a gun below his own chin.

Castiel puts the pieces together. Three days ago, Sam mentioned he and Dean had plenty of cash left to cover the next two weeks. Here is Dean now, mocking this man, taking the last of his money when he doesn't even need it, and Castiel...Castiel isn't putting up with this.

He marches straight over to Dean. He looks up when Castiel is close, a greeting on his lips and in his eyes, before he realizes Castiel is grabbing his arm and bodily hauling him away.

Dean splutters and probably bruises himself trying to pull away from Castiel's hand. "What the hell, man? He had three hundred left! I was gonna clean him out," Dean protests as Castiel drags him out of the bar into the parking lot.

"Do you need it, Dean?" Castiel snarls back.

"What?"

"Do—you—need it?" he repeats, backing Dean against the wall.

"No, Cas! We have money right now, I was just—"

"Just  _what_ , Dean? Why did you take it?" Dean gapes at him. Castiel can't honestly believe he would be this  _vindictive_. "You have no need for it. This is greed, Dean, this is wrong."

"It's a game of pool, Cas."

"It is  _wrong_ ," Castiel snaps. Dean's jaw shuts with a click. "I told you I was going to fix you, Dean, will you let me do that?"

"I don't need you to  _fix me_!" Dean shouts. "Fuck off, Cas; I don't have time for this." He shoulders Castiel on his way past, but Castiel simply sighs and pulls him effortlessly back by his wrist.

"Dean, you are the only one who can end this," Castiel says lowly, pushing Dean back and holding him against the wall. "You can cooperate with Heaven or not, but you are still the only one who can stop Lucifer from rising. I need you to know you can rise above Hell and you can save the world. You are the one, Dean. Not Sam, not anybody else. Just you. But you can't do it like this, Dean, drunk and barely scraping by."

Dean's eyes are bright and shining, his gaze fixed on an unknowable point beyond Castiel's shoulders. "And what," he says, all bluster and bravado, "me leaving three hundred bucks on the table's gonna magically save the world?"

"Greed is a sin, Dean," Castiel says. "It binds you to the pit because  _you_  know it is wrong." He looks at Dean, straight into his eyes, and in them is the guilt. The corner of his mouth twitches unhappily, because even now he isn't sure if Dean is listening to him. "You have to forgive yourself. But you have to move on as well."

"That's how you're fixing me then?" Dean snaps. "Just, love yourself and everything goes away?"

"You have to move on," Castiel repeats helplessly.

He stares into Dean's eyes, lifeless and dark as they are, and Castiel just wants to put the light back into them. He remembers that from when Castiel was only Dean's protector, not his friend and savior, how Dean's eyes were full of life even through the death he saw every day. Dean used to be brighter than the sun. Now he is dull like the quarter moon, and to Castiel, Dean is still the most tragically beautiful thing in creation.

"Like this," Castiel says suddenly. His hand slots over Dean's burn, and Dean gasps at it. Castiel grabs his hand in the other, and he lets Dean taste charity.

It feels like a rush even on Castiel's end, pushing this virtue into Dean until he can feel it in his soul. Dean slumps against the wall. His pupils dilate and his mouth opens in a silent gasp, head tilting up and Castiel follows the long line of his throat up to where Dean's eyes are sparkling like the stars.

"This is charity, Dean," Castiel whispers, awed. "Your world doesn't have to be consumed by greed."

Dean's eyes flutter closed and his soul flickers like a brightening candle. "It's warm," he breathes. "It feels alive."

"It's pure emotion, Dean," Castiel says quietly. "This is virtue in its purest form. I believe it is similar to the feeling you get after helping someone with a ghost problem."

Nodding slowly, Dean struggles to get his eyes open. "'S like that. But condensed. Almost—almost too much," he says, panting.

Castiel touches his forehead to Dean's as he withdraws, keeping a physical connection as he grasps Dean's hands in both of his, holding Dean against the wall so he doesn't collapse. He doesn't want a sudden disappearance of this closeness to accidentally send Dean's body into shock.

"I like—like the human form better," Dean says, his voice dragging. "But 's good. Real good."

"Do you understand what it could be like?" Castiel asks softly. "You'll never be perfect, Dean, but you can stitch your wounds. You can fill the void in you. But you have to let go of the sins you have learned in life."

"I don't think I can," Dean says.

Castiel smiles and leans into Dean harder for just a moment. "You're already begun," he whispers. "I can see it in you, and there is nothing you cannot do."

Dean swallows and their noses brush. "I'm always gonna be broken, Cas."

"And I've never expected you to be anything but human."

\---

Castiel isn't supposed to know the angels are coming for him, and he finds out purely on accident. He's waiting for anything to happen, his mind fully engrossed in communication with his brothers, mostly listening in on war preparations. Castiel thought they were already at war, but it's true that there are always unforeseen situations and contingencies to prepare for.

He is listening to Isofel singing a low, driving song when Castiel hears his name. He chases it unconsciously, tracing it back to the source and eavesdropping out of curiosity.

The words cut in and out, the sign that someone is trying to hide the conversation taking place but being completely careless. Castiel only catches a few words, but it's enough to send his mind racing as his wings stiffen in terror.

_Castiel..._  they say,  _falling...bring him back..._

After five words, Castiel knows this is the trouble he's been inviting this whole time. Zachariah looked into everything about this, and he most certainly knows about Castiel's time spent with Dean. He found out everything and reported it because Castiel is only in Zachariah's way. Now Heaven wants to drag him back to receive help before he does something truly stupid like rip out his grace and fall to Earth.

The worst part is Castiel truly has no idea what they do to angels like him.

\---

Castiel has never been as panicked as when he slips into Dean's dream. He's a raging mess in the middle of tranquility, a bull in a china shop, he heard Dean say once, and even here, in the most private of places, he isn't safe. He doesn't want to think about it. There has to be something Dean can do, anything and—

There's really only one thing he can do. So Castiel will hand him this body because Dean will figure it out. He always does, always reads Castiel better than either of them is necessarily comfortable with, and he will do the right thing. Castiel loves him  _because_  he will do the right thing, regardless of what the angels say, and maybe it won't have the best outcome. Maybe Dean will—will fuck it up somewhere and the human race will be lost. Nevertheless, he will do it with the best intentions, the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Hell breathing down the collar of his shirt.

It's not the Righteous Man Castiel believes in. It's Dean, the human Dean, the one who loves his brother and belongs behind the wheel of his car, not the prophesized version the angels believe in. It's the humanity, the search for the truth even when it doesn't exist that he believes in.

In the meantime, Heaven is coming for Castiel.

He waits in a warehouse, as hidden as he can be. The angels will find him no matter what he does, and while he will put up a fight, the odds are stacked so far against him Castiel doesn't even bother calculating the exact numbers.

They come to him anyway, as natural as flying, and his hands clench at the sheer size. The only possible way to avoid this fight is, quite frankly, suicide.

But Castiel will try his luck against Heaven before that happens.

He waits, readying himself mentally. There's no point looking for escape routes or the probable point of entrance. The only options are they take him or Castiel destroys everything Heaven sends to restrain him; he can't run because they are tracking him right now. On the other hand, he dies, but that self-preservation instinct kicks in there, telling him he needs to stay alive. The voice saying so sounds an awfully lot like Dean.

The bitch of it all, the absolute  _bitch of it all_ , is they don't send just any angels. When Castiel gets a look at him bursting through the door, thunder booming and lightning crackling, it's Inias. Inias stands there before him in his vessel, sorrow lining his grace instead of his human face because he hasn't yet worked out how to express himself visually.

He won't even look at Castiel.

"Brother..." Castiel pleads.

He doesn't register the flutter of wings behind him until it's too late and a sword is pressed to his throat. Castiel would recognize Hester anywhere, and his heart breaks at how easily they will threaten him. One order from Heaven and millennia of camaraderie and family means nothing.

The others begin to appear. He recognizes them all—they're the additions to his garrison, plus a few others who are specialists in containing the more supernatural creatures on Earth. Muriel, Rhamiel, Tabbris, Dina, Nisroc. Seven angels in all, seven angels to Dean's seven demons, Castiel thinks, almost reaching an incoherent point of terror.

"By decree of Heaven," Inias says, speaking not to Castiel but the space over his head, "we are to bring you back by any means necessary for the crime of disobedience to the higher order. You shall be subject to reconditioning and will not return to duty until you have been sufficiently cleansed of—"

If there's ever an opening for surprise it's in the middle of the arrest speech, Castiel decides on the spot, and he ducks out of Hester's grip before the thought fully forms in his mind.

He tosses Muriel through a wall completely on accident. It leaves him vulnerable to Nisroc, who grabs Castiel's wrist and swings him around so rapidly that Castiel doesn't see the cement pillar until he has taken a significantly sized chunk out of its side.

They're very efficient and not gentle, tossing Castiel around,  _toying_ with him. It's Dina's specialty; he knows how to make suffering worse. Dina's patience in dealing out wrath is legendary.

They tie Castiel up with ropes soaked in holy oil. Tabbris stands by with a lit candle, ready to light them on fire if Castiel tries anything, but he isn't going anywhere. There's nowhere to run, nowhere that they won't find him. He still can't stomach suicide, and the only option left is surrender.

_Please, Father_ , Castiel prays as Inias begins the chant to send him forcibly back to Heaven,  _please._

There's no answer, and Castiel has no way of knowing if God even cares.

\---

The war drums are beating.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Castiel feels the sound inside him, thrumming through his body like so many dancing vibrations all tied off into even little shocks to his system.

The war drums are beating.

The last time that happened, the angels were preparing for a joyous time. They weren't really war drums at all back then, just drums. Lately, the only thing they beat for is war.

He doesn't know how long he's been here for, only remembers leaving Dean an address and being ambushed by his garrison.

_You're awake_ , someone says. Castiel tries to reach out, call out, say anything to them, but his voice is gone. It's as if a wall stands in the way, taking his speech and pressing his thoughts into his head. It feels so empty inside, quiet without the familiar buzz of his brothers in the back of his mind.

He tries to ask where he is. The thought bounces off the wall and around his mind, echoing mockingly. Castiel has never felt as alone as he does now, completely cut off from anyone and everyone.

_Hi, Castiel, it's been a while since I've seen you. Been a while since I've seen Heaven, really. But you knew that. You were there when they tossed me out._

Castiel stares into the face of Rahab. He is one of the angels who fell with Lucifer and spent the last eternity in Hell. He shouldn't be in Heaven; Father banished him with the others and bound him to Hell.

_Of course_ , Rahab says, turning away,  _they don't have specialists for this in Heaven. Last time I was here, they wanted me to fix_ Gabriel, _of all angels, and I told them I couldn't do it. He's too powerful to bow to_ me.  _But you, on the other hand, are weak. You are insignificant, and yet you're causing quite the stir up here. You should hear what they're saying—oh, Castiel's disobeying, he's feeling emotion, blah, blah, fucking blah. I could teach them a thing or two about what's important. Most of them are stuck at feelings and disobedience, but I can see what the real problem is. It's the Righteous Man that has your wings all twitchy, isn't it?_

A knife pierces Castiel's wing, and Rahab laughs as he screams inside his own mind.

_Dean Winchester, the human. The one who can save Heaven._  Rahab sighs, stroking Castiel's wings with the knife and cutting off feathers.  _A poor champion in my opinion._

Protectiveness surges up inside Castiel despite everything and he says,  _Dean is anything but poor. He_ will _save us, and he will destroy all of you who have fallen from—_

_Oh, Castiel,_  Rahab says, shaking his head and poking at Castiel's face with the tip of his knife.  _Even when you were young, you were no good at hiding your thoughts. I can read everything just from the look on your face. Dean will_ never _destroy us. He is only a human. He is only a means to an end._ Rahab trails his knife down Castiel's face contemplatively.  _But enough of that for now. I haven't gotten to play with my toys in a while._

Castiel flinches when Rahab digs his fingers into Castiel's side—it feels more like claws sinking into him than anything else, and Rahab laughs when his face twists up in pain. This feels as foreign as using a vessel for the first time. He rarely feels pain in his true form and it's sharper than in a human body. It hurts more, stings harder, and as Rahab takes his knife and splits Castiel open with that instead of fingers, he remembers how it feels to bleed as his body—his grace, really—retracts and shies away from the knife.

Smoke spills out when Rahab presses the knife into Castiel, harder and harder until part of Rahab's hand shoves into the wound. Castiel may be made of light right now, but Rahab is no different, and his weapons are the only ones like them in existence, specially crafted in the fires of Hell to destroy light. They hurt more than Castiel imagined.

Rahab starts to sing an old war song with a driving beat that matches that of the war drums beating from the top of Heaven. He carves sigils and signs against Castiel's grace, not as deep as the first cut, but he has banishing sigils drawn all over. They set his body alight, compelling him to run and  _leave,_ but he can't get away, not with them imprinted into his grace like that. If he weren't bound, Castiel would be flying until they healed, unable to get away but still being pushed away from manifesting.

_There you go, little Castiel. You're so responsive—I suppose that figures; you can't hide your face, can't hide your body. That's why they caught you, Castiel. You're too easy to read, too obvious._  Rahab sighs and carefully ladles holy oil into the sigil carved onto Castiel's palm.  _It's too bad you never followed Lucifer; he could have taught you how to change it. He always saw great potential in you._

_No,_ Castiel says helplessly, pounding at the wall in his way.  _I am nothing like Lucifer, I am—_

Rahab lights the holy oil on fire with a blink of his eyes.

Castiel almost falls unconscious at the pain of it—his mind drifts away from his body and the war drums invade. They beat and beat against the inside of his mind, making the fire flare and the pain sing.

Body arching away from itself, Castiel screams as Rahab does the same thing to his forehead, chest, legs, wings...all of him. These scars will never heal completely, not with the way Rahab burns them into him. Castiel sobs at it all. The sigils alone made his grace want to tear itself apart, and the fire multiplies that until he wants to disintegrate.

Castiel is floating. He floats so high above everything, repelled by the pain.

The war drums are beating. They're the only thing Castiel can hear. Somewhere in his mind, he screams, cries, and begs, but that place is not floating. That place is jarringly far below him, and Castiel is burning up, rocketing into the sky until he reaches a universe so far away from here that he will never be able to find his way back.

The war drums are beating. Boom, boom, fucking boom, just like Rahab said.

A memory comes to his mind unbidden—well, Castiel thinks it's a memory. His mind isn't functioning very well right now. It's a man who might be Dean, if Castiel correctly remembers what Dean looks like.

"Right, you need to relax," he says. "Trench coat, suit coat,  _off_ , for one. Come on, now." Then maybe-Dean moves forward, his hands doing something beyond Castiel's line of vision, and an overwhelming feeling of love rushes through him. This is Dean.

He skips forward a little to Dean laughing, saying, "Whoa, Cas, where you aimin'?" before he slides right up to Castiel.

This man is the reason he's here, Castiel realizes as the feeling of Dean all around him takes his mind off the burning, floating sensation. Not in a negative way, but in a way that means he will fight through this.

When he crashes back into his body, Castiel thinks to himself over and over,  _whoa, Cas, where you aimin'? Whoa, Cas, where you aimin'?_

By the time he passes out, he's asking himself,  _What am I aiming for?_

_\---_

Everything is a haze through the war drums. Even without his consciousness, Castiel can hear the drums and understand their calling. His body is a shapeless mass right now, rendered to a smoke-like deformity as he tries to heal himself from the burns. It's an angel's way of bleeding, smoking out and becoming even less tangible than light waves, a mess of protons and nothingness. Castiel is nothing more than a demon this way, not more than the lowest creatures in existence.

It isn't enough to cause him pain. They have to humiliate him, break him down further than just mind—body too. Castiel knows there's logic in it—can't trace it right now, it's hard enough to keep his mind on one topic. God, he wants to float again.

Whoa, Cas, where you aimin'?

Rahab goes on. It goes on as the war drums go on, for days and days and  _days_ , cutting and burning and cutting and burning, until Castiel—in his rare moments of clarity—wants to crawl out of this place back to Dean. He wants to bury his face in the leather of the Impala and inhale its scent; he wants to smell demon blood in the air when he flies into Sam and Dean's motel room and hear the television playing over Dean's occasional snort of laughter.

Most of all, God, most of  _everything_ , Castiel just wants Dean. He wants to play pool ( _whoa, Cas, where you aimin'?_ ) and watch him smile and drink beer while eyeing the woman in the corner. And maybe if, in his mind, the woman isn't really a woman at all but a man in a long coat and a suit, Castiel is imagining impossible things anyway. The cant of Dean's hips when he sees someone he wants to take back to the motel room and the way his eyes wrinkle slightly in the corners when Castiel says something that annoys him. Castiel wants so desperately just to feel Dean's presence and see the moonlight glow of his soul radiating off him.

He wants everything about Earth, from the way they destroy God's creations to the way they drag each other down. He will go back to Hell if he has to, even watch Dean bent over a bloody body with Alastair behind him. Whatever gets him out of this cycle of burning and cutting.

Then it stops.

Everything is silent but for the war drums, beating off somewhere in the distance but still strong in Castiel's mind.

Panic sets in now that everything is over. The angels aren't done with him, can't be. He hasn't changed. Rahab is only one, and if he is the first, if all they do is send him into the land of insanity, he won't ever leave this place.

The waiting drives him insane.

The war drums beat, and it's every angel's call to arms. They were all created under the beating of the drums, and somewhere out there, the angels are tightening ranks to fill the holes in the army that have appeared since they were last called two thousand years ago. There will be an empty space for Castiel to return to, and the drums are pulling Castiel along with them, relentless and unyielding, pleading for him to join his brothers,  _please_ , Castiel.

He wants to join them and rejoice in God's plan as it is carried out according to His will.

_Are you ready to become like the rest of us, Castiel?_

Oh god, it's him.

_You have strayed, little brother. Michael thought he could trust you with Dean Winchester's soul, but you no longer care about that, do you?_

Please, no.

_I asked you a question, Castiel. Now_ answer.

Castiel thought he was numbed from the pain. He thought everything was dulled by holy oil burning angel banishing sigils into his body, but it turns out that the thing ripping through him is like nothing he could have imagined. It's almost like electricity, and it nearly sends his mind floating again while his grace smokes and curls away from itself.

_Speak, Castiel._

_I care,_  Castiel cries, already twisting around to get away from the pain that hasn't appeared yet but  _could_ , at any moment.  _I care, I swear, Metatron._

_Really?_  Metatron asks.  _Because I still think you're a liar._

The war drums beat in time with the electricity or the electricity pulses in time with the war drums. Castiel doesn't know, and when he tries to float into the land filled with memories and calm, Metatron pulls him back and tethers him.

He suffers silently because his body doesn't know how to scream through this.

_Do you know why you're here, Castiel?_  Metatron asks when the electricity stops.

Castiel moans and tries to shake his head, but he only has enough strength to make it loll to one side and stay there.

He's shocked again, one long pulse this time. He could end it; it could be over, and Castiel could be let out of here,  _just tell the angel what he wants to hear and get the fuck out of there, Cas!_

But Dean's not here. He's still stuck in a part of Castiel's head where the angels can't get him out.

Fire curls over him, under him, everywhere through every dimension, licking at him greedily with its tongues. Castiel knows as plain as day that it is punishment for thinking of Dean.

The war drums are beating above everything; they won't shut up. Castiel just wants them to shut up.

He is burning, burning up in Hell just like Dean Winchester, and the fire flares hotter when he thinks that. It could mean he's a broken shell or it might mean he's as bright and significant as Dean himself is, but Castiel just feels like a pathetic damaged toy for Metatron to play with until he gets what he wants out of Castiel. All of these angels are obsessed with their toys.

_Tell me why you're here, Castiel_.

_I've considered rebellion,_  Castiel whispers. It's as loud as he can be, and the fire immediately douses itself.  _I've considered rebellion. I've fraternized with humans. I've—_

_No._

In all honesty, Castiel never considered that he might be wrong.

_No, dear brother. You have strayed, yes, but that's not why you're here._  Metatron brushes his grace against Castiel's so gently and tenderly. It stings sweetly against his mutilated body.  _You're here because God's mercy is infinite. He wants you to come back to him, Castiel; he doesn't want you to fall._

Why the torture?

Metatron laughs.  _We can't just let you wander around like this, little brother. God's mercy may be unending, but he doesn't take kindly when his sons wander off the beaten path, you could say._

_Have you seen him?_  Castiel says, twitching against his bindings with joy at the idea. Proof, finally, proof that this  _is_  what Father wants, what he has decreed—proof that they are not running blind.

_I do not have to see our Father to have faith in him,_  Metatron snarls.  _I am not—_ He stops short, and Castiel can feel the way he reigns himself in.  _I am not like you, Castiel. I have faith in the orders my Father has given to me. You are here because you need to be reminded that we have faith no matter if we can understand. You have forgotten._

_I haven't forgotten, Metatron,_  Castiel says. His tongue is loose because it's the first time in a long time he has been able to speak, and he can't stop. _There is another way; we don't have to—_

_What you're suggesting, Castiel, is blasphemy. Our Father has a plan for all of us. Who are you to decide he is wrong? Who are you, Castiel, to be the one that tells God his infinite wisdom is wrong?_

Castiel says nothing because he knows. He  _knows_  he is no one; he is a single, lowly angel in an army of tens of thousands. He is a faceless soldier and he is nothing in the face of the war drums beating.

Except...except he's the one who raised Dean Winchester from Hell.  _He_  is the angel who  _raised Dean Winchester from Hell_ , and he is not a faceless soldier. Castiel (whoa, Cas, where you aimin'?) has proven that he is out of the ordinary, bordering on extraordinary as Dean is.

Don't the extraordinary at least get a chance to ask questions?

_I raised Dean Winchester from Hell,_  Castiel says triumphantly, hope shining through him, and it turns out all he needed was to relax and realize,  _this is the truth, right here_. This is why Castiel is different from the others.  _I raised his soul from perdition and I put him back together again so you could use him._

_You raised his soul and you fell in love with a human. That was not in our Father's plan, Castiel. I am here to bring you to the light._

Metatron caresses him gently.  _You'll see one day, Castiel, that I'm helping you._

The place Castiel is in is a rumor. The handful of angels that are said to have seen it won't speak of it. It's technically a myth among them, something that hangs over their heads as an abstract threat if they disobey. Supposedly, Gabriel broke out of here when he disappeared, overpowering Metatron to make his escape and flee to Earth.

What happens here, they call reconditioning. Castiel knows Dean would have other words for it—brainwash, fucked up, mind control—but he doesn't understand. Angels are made to obey. They are not made to wallow with humans and learn to play their games and how to ride in their cars without growing frustrated by the slow pace at which they move. Castiel has done these things and they will not be tolerated.

When Metatron speaks, it is to the rhythm of the war drums.

_You shall have faith in none but our Father. You shall love and worship our Father in each of your thoughts, words, and actions. You shall honor our Father's will and carry it out as he decreed. You shall remain loyal to our Father and your brothers-in-arms and not forget them for any temptation. You shall not want. You shall not practice deception against Heaven. You shall obey your orders._

_Castiel, you shall obey your orders._

Is he to become like Gabriel? Is he to become the brother that no one ever speaks of, but everyone remembers and wonders if he is dead? Whoa, Cas, where you aimin'?

_Who are you?_  Metatron demands.

_I am Castiel. I am an Angel of the Lord._

_You are an Angel of the Lord, Castiel. You will obey your orders._

And he will, in the end, because Heaven is terrifyingly competent at keeping its warriors in line.

_You were tainted in Hell, Castiel,_  Metatron says, touching Castiel with his sympathy and nearly drowning him in compassion.  _It's not surprising. The fire scarred you, but I can take that away. I can make you perfect again in the eyes of God if you just let me in. Trust me, Castiel._

You shall obey your orders, is what he means. You will let me fix you because angels are not meant to be broken.

Castiel tries to protest, but he finds that the wall is back up.

_I will remake you into an angel._

Boom.

_Electricity._

Boom.

_Electricity._

Screaming into nothing but his own mind, helplessness washes over Castiel again. His hope collapses—what does it matter that he raised Dean Winchester from Hell? It means nothing here. Maybe it makes him special in his own mind, but to Heaven he is merely a soldier. There is nothing here but the war drums and the pain that pulses against them in the spaces where there is no sound.

The war drums are beating.

The war drums are beating, calling Castiel to his brothers, to his rank in Heaven's army.

And it's clear, as the shock strikes through him, he doesn't want to go. This isn't his Heaven; this isn't his  _home_. This is the rally point, the army's barracks, the torture chamber—nothing is left of his home. Lucifer is gone, and even if he betrayed God, he was still Castiel's older brother. Gabriel, Anna, Uriel, Balthazar, and a hundred others, they're all  _gone_.

What, exactly, does Castiel have left here? The older brother who explained the Earth to him has given up on the angels; the closest brother who fought by his side is lost to Hell.

But what does he have on Earth? He has a human who likes to make suicide threats in his presence and get drunk instead of trying to save the world. There's the human's brother, driving himself into the ground with an addiction. It's not much. Castiel's not even sure anymore if it's  _enough_.

Metatron begins to sing, something in old, old Enochian, something Castiel hasn't heard since he was a young angel around the time the Earth was created. It's slowed down to match the war drums, but the melody is unmistakable.

He loses himself in Metatron's voice, each sweet note drawing him along. The words speak of God's unending mercy and forgiveness, His love for his children. When it's done, Castiel wishes for it back.

_Castiel,_ Metatron says, only now his voice is the definition of compassionate, floating and gentle. Almost nostalgic.  _Castiel, do you remember when you were young? You were so perfect. Thursday, the day the creatures of the sea were born, and Heaven rejoiced in you and in the ocean. Don't you remember how Gabriel took you into his arms and raised you high for the Heavens to see?_

_I do_ , Castiel says when he feels the wall broken down.  _I remember_.

The memory is hazy at best—everything is right now in the aftermath of this ordeal—but he remembers Gabriel laughing and telling all of Heaven that there, in his arms, was the last angel, the youngest of them all. That was a long time ago; they're all old and eternal enough that none of that matters anymore.

_And now the Heaven that celebrated you, that welcomed you into the love of our Father, is the Heaven you look to betray,_ Metatron whispers to him, his sadness brushing against Castiel's grace.  _Is that what you want for your brothers? To know that you love a human more than them?_

_Dean is more than simply a human,_  Castiel protests, but it's half-hearted at best.  _He is the Righteous Man; he is the one who can save the human race from Lucifer_.

_He must do those things on his own,_  Metatron says.

He hesitates.  _I...I don't love Dean more than my brothers._

_Then you know why we must bring you back to the innocence and the perfection of your youth. We cannot bear to lose you, Castiel._

Castiel knows he will not escape. Until Metatron deems him worthy, he will stay here, immobile and tied to whatever pain comes his way.

Metatron sings as he nudges Castiel's grace with memories of his brothers and their Father's will being carried out. He shows him the sight of Earth and humans when the pain beats between the war drums, and soon Castiel is crying out for it to end. These are all the wrong images of Earth, but eventually he can no longer remember strangers holding doors for strangers or the bond of a human family. War. Suffering. Cruelty. And just as Metatron means it to, it floods into Castiel's brain and overwhelms the good memories. It becomes obvious which side Castiel should belong to.

_No pain_ , Metatron promises as he shows Castiel an image of a mother beating her young son.  _Under our Father's love, there is no pain. No choice. Everything is truth under God, Castiel. You shall shine so brightly with the demons burned out of your mind, and you will never question again._

_I swear,_  Castiel sobs, only he doesn't know why he's crying. Whoa, Cas, where you aimin'? He's not aiming for anything.  _I swear._

_Close,_  Metatron says.  _Swear your love, your fealty, your grace. Everything, Castiel. You are an angel and you must swear everything._

The words flow from his tongue in Enochian older than the song Metatron had sung to him. It's an oath older than Death that gives everything he is to God, to the Heavenly Host, to the higher power. Castiel will no longer be the angel who raised the Righteous Man from Hell; he is simply another faceless, nameless solider in an army commanded by an unknowable superior.

It's better this way.

Metatron stops everything. Castiel is free for the first time in an age, allowed to stand and move. He is weak, but he will attend to his assignment and rest when he can in order to heal himself properly. It won't be long before he joins his brothers where the war drums have called them, taking up his rightful place beside his garrison. Pride glows quietly within him when he thinks of the strength of Heaven's army. It feels almost muted, but Castiel has no concept of such things anymore.

And somewhere, in the very darkest corners of his mind, he hears the phrase,  _Whoa, Cas, where you aimin'?_

But it doesn't mean anything.


	7. All Around Me

Dean doesn't know what to do, so he calls Bobby. Bobby can help; he can fix this because he's Bobby and he fixes things. He stops Dean from fucking things up and teaches him to throw a baseball and shows him how to cook in case Dean ever needs to take care of Sam like that. He taught Dean how to ride a bike when he was eight years old because John never bothered, and if there's one person in the world Dean trusts to know how to fix Sam, it's Bobby.

He refuses to think about Castiel.

"It's the middle of the night, Dean," Bobby says instead of hello. "What the hell's so important?"

"It's Sam, Bobby," Dean says, voice cracking. "Sam's back on the demon blood again, I saw him, Bobby. I don't—I don't know what to do, he's—"

"How'd you find that out?" Bobby asks, cutting Dean off before he can embarrass himself.

"There was a fight. Bunch of demons attacked, and me 'n Sam were fighting, and he cut a demon open with that knife, and I just watched him drink her blood right there in the middle of everything," Dean says, and somehow saying it out loud makes it more real. "Dammit, Bobby, I don't know what to do," he says, rubbing a hand up over his face. "He's...he's not Sam anymore, not like that. Stupid son of a bitch."

"Are  _you_  okay, boy?" Bobby says gruffly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll be fine, it's Sam, Sam's the one—"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time, idjit," Bobby snaps. "You're allowed to take care of yourself before you start worrying about the rest of the world, you know."

" _Sam_ ," Dean whispers. "It's Sam, Bobby, how can you—"

"You think it don't break my heart just as much? How the hell'd he get back into that crap, anyway?"

"I don't know," Dean admits, and it's like tearing a whole other hole inside his soul. "I don't know, but it's bad this time."

"I've got a plan," Bobby says after a bit of silence. "Can you hang in there for a few more hours?"

"Yeah, Bobby," Dean says. He can already feel his mind calming and his eyes drying up as someone else takes charge, handing him orders and making plans. Dean isn't strong enough to do that, and it's good that he knows someone who is.

"You boys hit the road, and I'll call in a little while when you can head over. The room will be ready when you get here," Bobby says. Dean's heart slides down to his stomach when he realizes what Bobby means.

"Room, meaning—" he says, because he's a masochist who has to check.

"Yup."

Oh god.

Bobby graciously doesn't comment on the strangled sob that crawls out of Dean's throat.

"I'll see you in a few hours," Bobby says gently, and he hangs up so Dean can break down in peace.

Right now, Dean is supposed to be checking the building for any demons that might be hiding, but instead he's cowering on the roof and crying because his little brother drinks demon blood as a dietary supplement. There is nothing Dean can do to help him but lock him away in a cage designed for demons, and isn't that just the icing on the cake, that Dean gets pulled out of Hell and is thrown back to a monster he doesn't even know how to trust anymore?

How long has this been going on? How long has Sam been lying to him? Hell, maybe Sam's always been lying to him about stopping. Dean wants to jump straight to 'no' and put his faith back in his baby brother, his Sammy, but there is no such person anymore. Sam is a monster that Dean's never even met inside himself.

The scariest part isn't the demon blood. The absolute most terrifying part is the fact that it's blood  _period_ , that Sam is somehow turning into the creature Dean was in Hell. Dean knows that road. He knows what happens to people who drink blood because he's been there, felt the power inside of him as it grew. People turn into  _things_  when they go down that path, and if Sam thinks he can control it, he is wrong. He is so dead wrong and so fucking deluded.

Seeing Sam back there, it reminded Dean of two things. Himself, for one, this one time Alastair took him into a room where the walls were mirrors and guided Dean's hands while he sliced this man open. Alastair whispered the filthiest things into Dean's ear that day, calling him baby and daddy's good boy while he explained to Dean all the things they could do in this room and Dean could just watch all of it from any angle he wanted. And Dean had wanted, even as Alastair grabbed Dean by the side of his face and made him look at the two of them in the mirror.

There had been blood smeared on Alastair's hands, and it had gotten all over Dean's face, almost exactly like it had been on Sam's.

Fast forward to the last day in Hell, Sam on the rack and Dean's hands on his face, smearing blood around his mouth like he was the new Picasso. A broken Sam isn't much better than a power-hungry Sam.

God,  _Sam_.

Dean manages to drag himself back into the building after he gets his breathing under control. He feels so fucking weak like this, knowing there is nothing he can do but wait for Sam to get better. There is no one to kill and no one he can blame this on—it's Sam's fault entirely for lying and sneaking around, and Dean can't fix that.

And right now, he has to be strong. Dean's always the one who has to be strong.

\---

Dean hits a point where he just can't be in the house with Bobby anymore. He's just researching and reading and completely ignoring Sam screaming bloody murder in the basement, and Dean's mind is splitting itself in half. This is the worst job he's ever done to take care of Sam—always,  _always_  fucking take care of Sammy, Dean—and there isn't a damn thing he can do about it. He hurts Sam either way here, and damn Bobby for suggesting they let Sam destroy himself to save the rest of the world. Damn him.

He heads outside with half a notion of doing some shooting practice, and he grabs a gun out of the back of the Impala on autopilot.

Dean means to set up some cans, he does, but he's walking out there and an old transmission is sitting on the front of some busted up beater, and he just takes a shot at it. Then another one because the first isn't satisfying enough, and again, and again until he isn't shooting at the transmission anymore but the whole damned car.

When he runs out of bullets, he stuffs the gun in the back of his jeans and hefts a rusty old crowbar out of the dirt. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done.

It feels good, it feels so good, to have power over something like this, to destroy. Dean's crying and laughing all at once, but it's cathartic. Because he can't save Sam and he couldn't save Cas, and now his little brother is going through withdrawal and the damn angel is fucked beyond all reason.

Dean hasn't thought about Cas since he put him out of his mind ages ago, and now that Castiel is on his mind, he can't stop.

Cas had wanted to say something, Dean is sure of it. But Heaven put a whole new load of shit in his head; probably only God knows what's up there now, and he isn't speaking to Dean. He's too busy running around again as Heaven's little bitch boy again, Dean knows, because he walked away. He saw Sam suck blood out of a demon and he just  _walked away_  like it didn't mean a damn to him that some broken human just lost his little brother to the darkness.

"Cas, you son of a bitch," he says, arms falling lax at his sides. "You—you asshole, you complete fucking  _asshole_ ," he shouts, and he swings the crowbar into the car again.

At least it's not the Impala this time, he thinks distractedly as he shatters the back window, screaming for Castiel to just turn up and explain himself. Dean's not even really sure who he's mad at, if it's Cas or Heaven or Sam or himself, because he carries a lot of hatred around in his heart and leaves it piled under denial most days.

He shouts until shouting isn't enough, and then he fumes silently on the hood of the car he just destroyed, praying every dickish plead for help he can imagine in his head.

_Oh, Castiel, Castiel, where the fuck are you, Castiel? Get your asshole self down here now or I'll beat the_ _shit_ _out of_ _you_ _._

It doesn't work. None of his prayers do, and Dean's not sure how much longer he's going to be able to care. He's all worn out from screaming and destroying the car, and there's nothing more for him to do but wander around the salvage yard and send prayers in his head.

The afternoon fades into evening and bleeds into night, and Dean does his best not to cry.

\---

Castiel received orders when he flew back to Heaven, and now he waits to carry them out. The objectives are simple.

Obtain the Righteous Man's service.

Release Sam Winchester.

Capture Anna.

Castiel waits until he is released from Heaven to do his duties. He can hear Dean praying the whole time, his words starting at blasphemous and obnoxious before they fade into pleading and heartfelt. When Dean cries softly,  _Please, Cas, don't leave me_ , something stirs in the deepest pits of his grace and he slams it back into place. He doesn't have time for that anymore.

Dean is typically human when Castiel flies down to him, ungrateful and obstinate. Castiel considers hitting him and putting some  _fear_  into his eyes, but that might be counterproductive to getting Dean to swear fealty.

It's surprisingly easy to complete his task. Castiel supposes Dean thinks of him somewhat as a friend, and humans are far too trustworthy with those they consider to be their friends. All it takes is saying the correct words in the correct order and hinting at Sam Winchester's damnation, and Dean may as well roll onto his back and present his throat to Castiel for all he's trying to obstruct the Apocalypse now.

That's what happens when you accidentally break a human's mind, he supposes.

Castiel waits again. He is to release Sam Winchester when he is ordered, and not a moment before. Castiel feels sorrow that his superiors have to clarify because of his previous actions, but he understands. They are so close to stopping Lucifer now; nothing can happen to disrupt the plan.

And when they arrive, he carries them out. Sam Winchester is freed so he may do what he can for the service of the Lord until such a time when the Righteous Man must step in.

Anna is easy to find. She turns up as soon as the news spreads about Sam Winchester, determined to make him question Heaven and repent his actions in the name of the Lord. She is dispatched of quickly. Castiel feels sadness that she has fallen so far.

_Castiel_ , Zachariah calls.

Castiel stands at attention immediately, his wings poised for flight.  _Brother_.

_It is almost time. Retrieve the Righteous Man._

_Yes, brother._

It's strange to see Dean. He has never noticed it before, but Dean's soul is brighter than he remembers, now that he truly looks at it. Castiel can see how it shines and radiates protection around the scars carved in it. Those are the scars he could not mend because they went too deep. He suspects that even now there are wounds beneath them where no creature can see, making up the parts of Dean where his mind is broken. Castiel never noticed that before, but he has been confused as of late. Heaven set him straight.

Dean doesn't notice him when he appears. His back is to Castiel and Bobby, shoulders hunched and jaw clenched, but his soul sparks in greeting. Dean is warm when Castiel enfolds his wings around him to take them to the Green Room, and a lightning strike of doubt slams into Castiel at the feel of Dean's soul welcoming its savior. This feeling has been stamped out of him, but Castiel is certain that Dean's soul has always been this welcoming and earnest.

But that is doubt, and Castiel does not doubt any longer. If this feels like he is betraying Dean, Heaven is only testing him.

\---

Zachariah has always been overly fond of being more powerful than the humans. He likes to taunt and tease them, and even when it is just him and Castiel waiting outside the room, he gloats at how well they are doing. Heaven will be proud, according to him, maybe even proud enough to give them promotions, hasn't Castiel thought about that?

What Castiel's thought about is that Zachariah is possibly the most self-serving angel in existence, but he doesn't say that aloud.

Dean asks for him—Dean is always asking for him, if Castiel is honest, in the way his soul reaches out to touch Castiel's grace—and Zachariah gives his blessing. Heaven must trust him now, Castiel thinks, and bitterness seeps into his head when he has to deny Dean his brother. He thinks of Balthazar, how there isn't a force in the universe Castiel wouldn't battle through to reach him.

But rationally, he knows Balthazar is gone. There is nothing to fight for, just feathers and a dull halo stomped into the ground in the deepest pits of Hell.

If he could, though. If only he  _could_.

That's when Dean starts breaking the wall. Zachariah sighs, mutters something about insolence, and flies away to deal with him. Castiel pays half a mind to their conversation, straightening a kink out of his wing absently. There isn't much to do but listen and think. Heaven is on the path to stopping Lilith, and all they need is to wait for the sound of the war drums telling them the battle has been won.

What Castiel hears instead is that Heaven wants the Apocalypse to happen.

The chains in his mind are torn out by a bullet, the careful training and reconditioning ripped away in the space it takes for fury to explode through Castiel's grace. The torrent of emotion takes him off guard; it feels like a punch to the stomach, like the first painful breath of air after a deep swim up to the sky. He feels alive and electric like the stars, anger and sorrow—true sorrow now, not watered down red paint anymore—painting the world with color beyond his imagination. Everything is bright and vivid and wholly, incomprehensibly human again, the colors splashed back into the world with a crazed fervor that strikes Castiel like a shove to his grace so strong he feels it physically.

The question is no longer  _whoa, Cas, where you aimin'?_  The answer is the memories swirling back into their rightful places.

Metatron and Rahab don't matter. Castiel will take a thousand years of their torture if he can just see Dean's soul shining after the fact. Everything about Dean is green, from the glow of his soul to the love in his eyes, and Castiel could drown in the color because he loves that human more than the brothers who would destroy their Father's work. Dean's soul is worth rebellion in all of its stubborn, asinine, coltish, infuriating glory, and Castiel will die for Dean. He probably will die for Dean, if he doesn't stamp out the emotions now.

But the thing his mind keeps coming back to is this—the most beautiful thing in all of creation, and Castiel is going to have a helping hand in its destruction.

There are other things to worry about, more sins to atone for, because he betrayed Anna in the worst sense; she'll get it worse than he did in Heaven—and he's let Sam free.

But there isn't time for that, not now with Lucifer so close to rising and Dean trapped by Zachariah. Dean really is the only one who can stop this. He is the  _only_ one in the entire universe who can keep Sam from doing this, prevent Lucifer's rising, and Castiel's faith slams back into him.

Dean can do this. He just needs to get out of that room.

Castiel still has a part to play. Zachariah is watching and very much on alert with Castiel, but he needs to see Dean, needs to see if he can somehow pass along the message that all is not lost. Because it really isn't. Castiel hates to believe he's special, but if anyone can stop this, it's the Righteous Man and the angel who raised him from Hell. There is no one else.

Zachariah, of course, puts his guard back up the moment Castiel mentions wanting to see Dean.

_Why do you want to do that, little Castiel? Anything you're not telling me?_

And Castiel thinks to himself that this is only a game of pool with a fat businessman who has nothing to lose. He knows how to play this game.

_I believe it would help end his disobedience to hear an apology from the angel he still considers a friend,_  Castiel answers steadily. His wings are almost vibrating under the strain it takes to display no emotion now that he has it. Zachariah studies him as he blanks out everything. That's all angels are, Castiel knows now, just brank templates occasionally tinged with the barest hints of sadness or happiness. Some of them have evolved in their years, but they are all essentially the same, empty and barren compared to what Castiel is now.

_Can't hurt to try_ , Zachariah answers after his scrutiny of Castiel is done.

Passing along the message, at any rate, is hopeless, because Dean is a little too hurt and he's lashing out distrustfully. It isn't Castiel's best performance either—he puts too much inflection in some of his words and tries far too hard to get Dean to understand. There's desperation in him, because everything Dean says is true and he knows it, but it still makes him cold to think that he will die for this. Dean doesn't understand because he has consigned himself to death before, but Castiel has never even  _considered_ the possibility until now. There are some feelings even humans cannot grasp, and he nearly says that before Dean tells him, "We're done."

It must flash so obviously through him, the feeling that screams  _no, we're not_.

Zachariah only sees results, though, and Dean settles down. Result? Positive.

_He thinks he can stop this,_ Zachariah gloats,  _but Lilith's death is the final seal._  Castiel suspects he isn't supposed to know that, but the angels' dulled version of excitement thrums through Zachariah.  _In a few hours, Sam Winchester will have freed Lucifer and it will be all over. There is nothing anyone can do._

He thinks Heaven has triumphed. But even with everything to lose, Dean is fire and spirit to his very core. Zachariah knows nothing.

Zachariah's attention wanes quickly, but there isn't enough time to get Dean out if Zachariah is still paying half a mind.

Castiel despises waiting. It's a surprisingly human emotion that makes him feel just a little warmer.

It isn't long before Zachariah fades into the conversation of brothers in his head, his vessel's eyes glazing over as he removes all of his attention from Earth. Castiel sends a brief prayer of thanks to his Father, because even after his Hell in Heaven, Castiel still believes He's helping him. He has to be.

There is just enough time for Castiel to fly to Dean and save him from Heaven. For a moment, just the barest instant, Castiel's grace is pressed against Dean's very soul with nothing but a wall to support them, and it feels like Castiel has just been gifted the whole world as Dean submits to him.

Castiel can't believe he forgot how alive Dean makes him feel. The first time, it was slow, gradual, like being slowly submerged into the ocean. This time, however, it is all at once, a snap change from endless blue sky and sea to diving into the coral reefs, and Castiel feels reckless in his impurity. The trust in Dean's eyes and the full welcome of his soul make Castiel remember why this is worth it.

_Whoa, Cas, where you aimin'?_ indeed.

His plan is half-formed and shoddy, and even an animal could see the holes in it. It's the only thing he has, though.

Castiel knows full well he's walking straight to his death—the archangels will be watching the prophet and Zachariah has already told Heaven of Castiel's betrayal. His brothers cry out in anger in his head, and Castiel blocks it all out and washes his mind green.

There is no time for apologies or goodbyes. He says, "I'll hold him off. I'll hold them all off," and he fucking means it. When he touches Dean's forehead, Castiel does the last thing he can do for him—he lets Dean feel kindness the way Castiel showed him charity in hopes that Dean will understand everything Castiel doesn't have time to say. Their scars are so similar in the part of them no human can see, and he thinks maybe it means that Dean will understand what Castiel is trying to say.

He will not survive this, but Dean will, and humanity will continue with him.


	8. Runnin'

Castiel's world rocks when he slams back into life with a rush of bright light. There's no air in his lungs and no electricity pulsing in his brain, until suddenly there  _is_ , and he's violently alive again. Phantom hands caress his body, and before he melts entirely into consciousness, it feels like...it feels like God. Like the first time he was born when the drums beat through the whole of Earth and great hands shaped him into an angel.

The feeling fades as quickly as it comes, and he opens his eyes in shock. The Prophet Chuck is slumped on his dirty couch, undoubtedly because of Raphael, and they are all alone.

He almost feels like he imagined God. There is no logic either way. It can't have been God because Castiel has feelings still, but there is no one else powerful enough to make Castiel back just as he was.

This might be God's blessing. It could be His way of telling Castiel He approves, of saying, "Good job, Castiel. Welcome to the other side of destiny."

Castiel is excited; he is so honestly elated that they have not only stopped Lucifer's rising, but also  _God approves of their choices_.

It only makes it worse when he understands.

A roar of voices grows in the back of his mind, and when Castiel hears it, he expects to hear anger from his brothers because Castiel has betrayed them and helped the Winchesters to thwart them. Instead, they celebrate.

One cry,  _Lucifer has risen!_

Another claims,  _Sam Winchester has succeeded._

And the one that breaks him,  _Dean Winchester was unable to avert the Apocalypse._

There's this thing inside of him—the humans call it a heart, but it's not a physical one—that lurches to the side because this  _has_  to be a trick. Castiel cannot believe that it's possible, and he digs into the collective memories of Heaven to search out the truth.

He watches the scene three times. The first is in disbelief as Lucifer drags himself out of Hell. The second, he watches the Winchesters as they are removed by some invisible power, and the final time, he just...can't stop. Like how the humans say it's a train wreck they can't look away from, Castiel cannot stop watching their complete and utter failure.

Castiel wonders briefly if this is his Hell.

Somehow, the war isn't over. They haven't changed anything; all he and Dean have managed to do is put a couple of hiccups in the timeline that, ultimately, don't matter. Nothing about this story is made up. It's planned, calculated down through everything the way God's plans always are, and this is what Castiel gets for putting his trust in Dean.

He  _died_  for Dean. Now he's back to—to what, watch the world suffer because of this failure? He rebelled and now his punishment is to see what happens next. It's the greatest joke in the entire universe, that he gets rewarded just to see this.

Life isn't a gift. Life is a giant wakeup call saying,  _Congratulations, you fucked up, now deal with the consequences_.

Unless.

If God brought him back unchanged, there is a very real possibility that He wants Castiel to try again. What if—and Castiel feels blasphemous just considering it, but  _what if—_ God made a mistake with the Apocalypse and this is his way of trying to fix it? What if Castiel's on the right path with a blessing surrounding his existence and God wants him to change this?

Maybe God fucked up in his original plan.

It feels wrong even to  _consider_  that possibility, but part of Castiel just doesn't want to give up. He wants to keep fighting, divine recognition be damned, and he can't help but think this is the figurative green light. There's no way of knowing, of course, what purpose God has put him on this planet for, but what matters is that he  _is_  on this planet. That is the only truth.

Castiel gathers his strength about him. His faith in Dean is gone, and he can't believe in his Father yet. But maybe…maybe he can start believing in himself. The hole inside him won't heal because losing faith is all-encompassing when it's the only thing you've ever lived for. He has never lived without faith; it's grounding to see the world as something only he can change. It's terrifying, too, and he wants to forget this foolishness and stumble back to Heaven just as surely as he wants to help.

That's not an option, though. The only answer is to fight through it.

\---

Being cut off from Heaven is strange.

Once Castiel gets past the initial betrayal of being tossed out, he just feels empty. The voices lingering in the back of his head are barely more than whispers and his grace feels like it's been tamped down to a grain of sand. He is nothing without Heaven's love flowing through him, and it's petrifying. He's alone in his head as he was with Rahab and Metatron.

Panic's probably his least favorite emotion.

The only good thing that's come from this is that the angels can't find him, either. Castiel can't be tracked as long as he isn't connected with Heaven, and it's useful because they're definitely after him now.

Thing is, though, Castiel isn't entirely sure his brothers would recognize him if they saw him. He's all scarred out of shape now that he's finally healed from Heaven's reconditioning—it even shocks him sometimes to stretch an arm out and see how mutilated he is. Most angels who look like this have battle wounds, but Castiel's are just a mark of dishonor.

He's not sure how the sigils are going to affect him yet. They don't hurt anymore because the wounds aren't fresh, but they're  _there_ , and they're dangerous.

He looks a little bit like Dean, if he's honest. They're both scarred beyond reason under the surface, and even if Castiel's lost his belief in Dean, he takes comfort in knowing that they're similar. They've both been broken. And Dean's only a fragile human, too, and still living through his life—and it makes Castiel think he'll make it through everything, too.

He has to take this into his hands, so to speak, just as Dean tried to stop Sam. Except Castiel  _will_  succeed, and Lucifer will be stopped. He even has a plan. Sort of.

\---

It's unsettling not to know where Dean is at all times. Castiel's used to tracking him unconsciously, but now there's nothing but a blank space where Dean used to be. It makes him feel even more cut off, but it's necessary. Dean needs to be hidden. Castiel doesn't have to like it.

Acquiring a cell phone to locate him is laughably easy. Castiel feels guilty for forging payment and information with his grace, but it's necessary. Everything right now is  _necessary_ , and he hates how much he has to change to make this work. Losing Dean's constant presence is one thing, but reforming his morals is contradictory to everything Castiel is, even as a rebel. This is beyond falling from Heaven; this is revolutionizing the basest parts of himself and it's  _wrong_.

But it's necessary.

It was necessary to kill two of his brothers the other day, as if he's the sort of angel who just murders his own brothers. It doesn't matter that they were threatening Sam and Dean or that they don't have any choice in the matter when Zachariah orders them. They're dead, thanks to him, and angels, unfortunately, don't come back to life like the Winchesters. It's permanent. And it's all Castiel's fault because it was  _necessary_  in the war against Heaven.

So he's going to look for God. It's not quite atonement for his sins, and he most likely will not be forgiven for them, but Castiel's going to  _try_.

He isn't sure where to start looking once he gets the amulet from Dean. There are an infinite number of places He could be and Castiel doesn't know where to begin narrowing the list.

He starts in Bethlehem—the old one, the true one—because it's always been an important place, just like Lawrence, Kansas. The amulet does nothing, though, doesn't turn any warmer than Castiel's palm, and he doesn't know what he was expecting. God in the birthplace of his First Savior? If it were that easy, He would have been found long before now.

He tries the Garden of Eden next, the land between the rivers. Humans call it the birthplace of civilization and it's a gross approximation of what really happened here. Castiel can remember it like it was yesterday, with Cain and Abel in the fields and the kind of love you can only find between two brothers. He's loved Dean since then, when Castiel was young and impressionable and the Second Savior was nothing but a far off dream. Now the beauty of that time has seeped out of the land, and it's empty of God here, like nothing great ever began in this place.

Castiel spends an hour there anyway, because he can still perform minor miracles. He can feed the hungry and hold the hands of the dying, and even though his hatred for the human race rages inside him because of what they do to their own, something deep in him rises up and refuses to let Lucifer destroy this. There is beauty in their brokenness, even if it's often invisible in the face of pain and suffering it causes, and he remembers it even as he moves on.

The problem is God could be anywhere. He might be a brick in the Great Wall or a sunset in an undiscovered island in the middle of the ocean; he could be human in the tallest building in the world or a starving ant on the forest floor. He is God; He is whatever He chooses to be, and Castiel has no idea what He might pick. He could be an extra itch in the Fibonacci sequence of a sunflower, maybe the waking man in the middle of the lightning storm, or the endless glory in the starry sky.

So Castiel just searches. Flight is fast, but time is faster, and he's never been so small in the face of the universe.

\---

Dean isn't drinking alone. There's a man two seats down from him doing the same thing, and a bored looking bartender who's only paying attention to Dean because the chick he was hitting on left, and therefore, Dean isn't drinking alone. Not really.

He can't be around Sam right now. Ain't no way in hell, because the sight of Lucifer crawling out of the ground is still too raw in his mind, and it doesn't matter if Sam didn't know. Dean is drunk enough to admit that he doesn't give a damn, because Sam still left him and started the Apocalypse. Next time, he's going on lockdown  _with_  Dean, and Bobby's sitting outside the panic room with a Taser gun.

"Do you ever just," Dean says, because he's feeling talkative tonight, and he doesn't miss the way the bartender's eyes glaze over just a little bit, "want to give up?"

"I hear that same phrase five times a night," the bartender says bluntly. "You're number four today."

Dean throws back the last of his whiskey. "Ever answer honestly?"

"Once in a while," he says, shrugging. "You ever honestly consider it?"

Dean's mouth twists angrily without his permission, and he spits out, "Every day, man. Every single fucking day."

He slams his glass back to the table. He doesn't mean it to be angry but he can't hold it anymore, and the bartender takes it wordlessly and fills it back up. Dean runs a hand through his hair, because he can barely handle this on the best of days.

"We don't usually get serious men," the bartender says, wiping his hands on his apron. "Old drunks, sad drunks, angry drunks, but you're none of those." He stares at Dean as if he's trying to figure out the secrets of the universe. "I'm Michael."

Dean laughs roughly, because fucking seriously? "No shit," he says, shaking the man's hand. "Dean Winchester."

"Why do you want to give up, Dean Winchester?" Michael says, leaning his forearms on the bar and staring Dean right in the face. It's been a long time since he's been validated with undivided attention by anyone other than Castiel. There are a lot of things he can say to that, about Heaven and Hell and Sam, but the easiest version is...well, the truth.

"You believe in the Apocalypse?" Dean asks, staring Michael dead in the eye.

"Never given it much thought."

"My little brother started it."

Michael stares him down. Dean takes a drink, meets his gaze steadily, and waits for him to dismiss Dean as crazy.

"Alright, I'll bite," Michael says instead. Dean blinks, surprised—he's used lines like that on people before, and they always brush him off. "How'd he start it?"

Dean shrugs, his resolve weakening as his eyes slip down to the scratched top of the bar. "He didn't know," he says quietly. "He didn't know what he was going and I couldn't stop him in time. I mean," and Dean laughs lowly into his drink, "you'd think killing a demon would be a good thing, right? When they're one of the most powerful ones in Hell, you'd think killing it would be a good thing. But she—she was the last Seal."

"Where's God in all this?" Michael asks. "Isn't he supposed to stop stuff like that?" Dean glances up at him sharply—no way some random guy understands what he's talking about. Michael just grins. "Religious studies major, with a minor in ancient history. I get people drunk on the side."

Snorting, Dean says, "Of course. Well, God doesn't care. He left the picture a long time ago, according to the angels, and he doesn't care what happens to us."

"How can God just abandon us?"

"Dude's a dick, I don't know. Almost all the angels are dicks. Probably take after their Father." Dean breathes in and out as Michael slides away to fill a drink order. He grips the edge of the bar tightly. His head is light and his heart is pounding in his chest. Dean is violating every rule right now, giving out his real name and talking about what he actually does with his life, and he doesn't care. He doesn't care because there's nothing left to live for at the end of the world.

What's the point?

"Sorry about that," Michael says, slipping back to his spot in front of Dean. "What were you—?"

"I should go," Dean says, his mind and vision spinning. "I shouldn't have said—I'm sorry, I just. Sometimes."

"Hey." Michael covers Dean's forearm with one hand, and Dean snaps his head up to look at him. "I'm interested. Skeptical, but interested."

Dean hesitates, and it must show on his face.

"Can't hurt, having a listening ear."

"I'm not really the talking type," Dean says, hedging.

"Try." Michael raises his eyebrows in challenge, and Dean can't resist a challenge.

His story is filled with the bare minimum details. Hell. Earth. Seals. Apocalypse. Vessels. It's still the most he's said at once in a long time, even to Castiel. For some reason, Castiel gets him to talk all the time, just has to wait long enough for Dean to crack.

"You're really serious," Michael says when Dean's done.

"Very," Dean says. Michael's eyes are blue, but they're entirely the wrong shade, and he has to look away.

"Wow. Okay. So either you really believe this and you're crazy," Michael says slowly, "or this is really happening."

"Wait a couple of months before you start spreading the word," Dean advises. "Let shit start happening first. Don't want you to look crazy."

Michael laughs. He sounds shocked, like he can't quite believe this is happening. "But you're not going to give up, right?" he says. "I mean, it's—it's the end of the world. You're not actually going to give up."

"I have been fighting," Dean says lowly, "my whole life. Against things you can't even imagine, like you wouldn't believe. Creatures that destroy everything they touch because they're angry. But I've never seen this before. It's never been the world at stake, not ever. How do you handle that?  _How_ do you handle the whole damn world on your shoulders, Michael?" He slams his palm on the bar. "You can't just _keep going_ , as much as you'd like to. It's not  _easy_ , it's—"

"Hey, man, I'm looking out for your ass just as much as mine," Michael says, frowning at Dean. His forehead is wrinkled and his eyes are blue and it's not  _right_. "It's the end of the world; it's not going to be easy."

Dean shakes his head and clenches his jaw, because this is far past 'not going to be easy.' He is so far down in so much shit, and he just—he can't do it, some days. Dean pushes his glass towards Michael, and it's a wordless exchange of alcohol as Dean tries to get his breathing under control.

"This guy, though, Castiel, he's on our side? He's one of the good guys?" Michael asks, and he looks stupidly hopeful. Dean can't remember ever having that much blind hope in such a loaded question, even as his heart slides into his throat. Cas is—Cas died for Dean, back at Chuck's, and that's not something he knows how to handle yet.

"Yeah," Deans says shortly. "He's on our side."

"And..." Michael prompts, because in the hour they've known each other, he's always been asking questions that Dean doesn't exactly want to answer. Dean considers leaving.

"And he's on our side," Dean repeats roughly, because he is  _not_  going over his clusterfuck of a relationship with Cas with a bartender in bumfuck wherever the fuck they are. Fuck.

Michael just rolls his eyes.

Dean is well and truly drunk now. Actually, he's probably just flat out  _gone_ , he's had so much whiskey, and one of these days, he's probably going to go back to Sam as a liver problem in a body bag.

He stays until the bar closes, taking longer and longer to down each glass of whiskey, but he doesn't stop drinking. One day Dean will drink enough to drown himself, and he will go in a haze of alcohol and mindlessness, like the best damn rock star the world has ever seen. Dean will be an enigma to the very end and leave nothing but an empty vessel and his baby brother.

A waiter kicks him out because Michael won't. Dean can't remember what direction the motel is in, or if he even walked here. His baby might be around somewhere, and—hey, there she is, under the only streetlight in the parking lot. Dean is so great about the safety of his girl.

Too bad he can't do that for Sam anymore.

He stumbles to the Impala, his key scratching at the lock. He scratches the paint because his hands are clumsy, and it just makes Dean feel even more worthless. If he can't even take care of a damn car, how the hell is he supposed to take care of the whole world? He'll fuck them both up eventually.

The world isn't on Dean's shoulders. The world is perched on his back, pressing his whole body into the ground and leaving him flattened there.

The screen of his phone blurs in his vision. Dean can barely see to get his fingers to hit the right buttons as he slumps against the Impala (she's holding him up, holding him together, just like she's always done, because a house is not a home but a car is).

Castiel's phone goes straight to voicemail. Dean has no idea where he is right now; he's searching for God, and that's ambiguous at best, but it's clearly a place without satellite signal.

"Hey, Cas," Dean says. His throat catches on every word, and he is not going to fucking cry. "Cas, I can't—I can't do this anymore, not with Sam, he. He just did it, Cas, and I can't trust him. I don't—fuck, Cas, I just want to be done," he pleads, dropping his head to rest against the top of the Impala. "Find God, Cas. Find Him, because I just don't want to do this anymore."

He hits end just as his other fumbling hand manages to unlock the car, and he yanks the door open with an uneven heave of his shoulders.

Dean can say he can't do this. He can balk and fail and protest as much as he wants, but in the end, he will kneel. He will always kneel for humanity, because that's what he's done his whole life. It's not fair that he has to give up his life, his sanity, for people who don't even know what he's saving them from. But someone has to do it and, whether he likes it or not, Dean is the one with the whole world on him.

Maybe he doesn't play by the rules Heaven wants, but he will play. Dean will try to save them, and he can't handle that. He doesn't want to be selfless. Just this once, if Dean Winchester could be selfish, he'd spend the rest of the days with his little brother. They would drive and drive, and hit up New York City because Sam's always wanted to see it and go to the southernmost tip of Florida because Dean hasn't been to all four corners of the United States yet. He's seen Alaska, Maine, and California; and Hawaii doesn't count because it's not connected to everything else.

He should start a bucket list. Who knows how much longer he has left anyway.

Dean stays in the front seat of the Impala. He can't make himself drive the two miles back to the hotel, and he should call Sam so he doesn't worry, but Dean dropped his phone somewhere on the floor and he doesn't feel like digging it back out.

Still not crying.

Fading into sleep is hard; Dean's heartbeat is loud in his ears, and the whiskey didn't dull the blanket of panic that sits in the pit of his stomach constantly these days. Hellfire flickers behind his eyelids every time he shuts them, and he knows it's going to be one of those nights.

\---

The way Hell greets him isn't with open arms this time. Dean is yanked into it, tumbling forward into oblivion and jerked in and out of reality. He sees Castiel standing there with fiery eyes, and Dean reaches out for him. He has to be here to save Dean, he  _has to_ , and Dean can barely find solid ground with his feet as he sprints toward Cas.

There's a fire burning there in Castiel's like stars, and it's so beautiful the way entire planets seem to breathe and die within his eyes. Dean wants to catch them in his hands and show the world that this is what the universe looks like from places humans will never see, but Castiel keeps all his solar systems inside of him just for Dean. He reaches out to take Cas' hand so they can fly out of here, but Dean is falling suddenly, flying free into a cold world where the fire of Castiel's eyes burns all around him, inside him.

He screams into the silence because he's felt this before, in the freezing cuffs of chains stringing him up and the touch of grotesque fingers against his body. It's hauntingly familiar. Iron caresses his skin sharply, spawning lacerations in him as he tries to fight his way past them, but Dean is in free fall. He can't avoid them.

"Dean," Castiel says, and Dean crashes into the ground.

"Cas," he says breathlessly, ribs aching where the dirt of Hell is being rubbed into his wounds, only this isn't Cas. It's a demon with blue eyes that shine like dying stars, and he's touching Dean's cheek so tenderly. "Cas, where's Cas?"

The demon throws its head back and laughs. "This is going to be fun," he says, and a feral grin crawls across his face. Dean fights against the chains holding him down, but they have him strung up six different ways on the rack and he can't so much as twist them.

"Did you have fun? During your nap? I helped a little, but it's amazing the things you came up with all on your own, Dean," the demon who absolutely isn't Cas says. "Even I didn't see Sam as Lucifer's vessel coming. That was creative, very self-destructive, Dean; you'll make a fine torturer yet."

"What did you do to Cas, you son of a bitch?" Dean roars. Sweat breaks out across his skin despite the chill hanging in the air, and he yanks desperately at his arms to free them.

"You could say 'Cas' doesn't exist," he says, licking his lips slowly. "But you could also say that he does, and that he's standing right here in front of you. He's just not the same angel you remembered."

"When he finds you—" Dean says hysterically.

"You got me." The demon grins at him. "I'm Castiel, Dean. I'm the real Castiel, the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition. Except—plot twist, I'm also the one who threw you back in."

"You're not…." But even Dean can't find sense anymore. This is Cas in all the ways that count. His soul jumps the exact same way with the proximity and the demon's eyes are otherworldly in the way no one but Cas has ever been able to achieve. "How?" he asks, his throat closing around the world as his stomach sinks into his legs.

"It's always been this way," Castiel says, winking as he taps at Dean's throat. "Even Alastair is imaginary. I made him up, though, so you don't have to take credit for that sick piece of work. But adding in another Castiel...that was interesting to watch. And then you went and did something stupid with your feelings, didn't you?" Dean growls at him and Cas just laughs. "It's always been in your head; you never left here. It was only a test, just to see how you might respond when we take you off the rack in two hundred years."

Dean refuses to believe it.

"That's okay, Dean," Castiel says, closer to his ear. "I love you, and you will learn to love me as well." He bites at the skin below Dean's earlobe, applying pressure until the skin breaks and blood wells up. "You will see, in the end, that I'm telling the truth. I'll never lie to you, Dean, not in the ways that count, and I can promise you that one day you will love me, too."

Shaking his head, Dean closes his eyes. He tries to go back to sleep and wake up drunk in the Impala, and he waits and waits against the movement of Castiel's body against his. Razors carve at his skin and he must lose his legs half a dozen times to decomposition, but it's still not real, not for him. It can't be.

This demon, the one who claims to be Castiel, whispers beautiful things in Dean's ear about how much he loves him, how much Castiel wants to see him  _scream_. Dean tries to deny him, but Castiel just slides his intestines out and drops them steaming on the floor. He howls then, and there would be tears streaming out of his eyes if Castiel hadn't cut them out first.

Dean wakes up screaming for salvation.


	9. Spectrum

Somewhere in northern America, there is a sunset where the light barely clears the mountains anymore because it's so late in the evening. Castiel would be cold here if he were human, but he is an angel, even if he doesn't act much like one, hunkered down in this filthy trench coat with his grace sobbing underneath his human skin. He doesn't feel like an angel because he cannot heal and it hurts to fly—his wings are overexerted, overstretched, and God is nowhere in sight.

Castiel melts back into his mind where he still feels like a child of God, his eyes glazing over as the falling sun stares back at him. Humans can hardly bear to stare into the sun's beauty, but Castiel  _is not human_ , even if he feels as powerless as one.

His brothers whisper in his mind. Castiel struggles to make out their words, now that Heaven is no longer connected with him, and even as hard as he tries, he can't pin down everything that's going on.

He searches instinctively for his garrison, but either Hester and Inias are silent or Castiel is more incapable than he wants to admit. If only Balthazar was here—Castiel might not even be alone if that were true, because Balthazar was always his closest brother. Maybe he would fall for Castiel; maybe he would believe in Dean or God. Maybe he would ease the numbing silence that resonates in the world, and that's all Castiel really wants—someone to understand him, to pass the time with him, to fully realize his sacrifice as more than a change in belief.

Castiel is so alone.

Breaking his gaze from the sun, Castiel stares at the dirt beneath his feet. He can see every detail in it, the rough texture and the moving time. If he tried hard enough, he could trace each one to its original place on Earth, but that game lost its fun after the angels catalogued all the atoms in existence, and there is no one to fly with him anyway. Warriors of Heaven have a lot of downtime when there are no immediate threats, and somewhere in Heaven, there exists an eternally growing family tree of every living thing on Earth. The Winchesters' line is highlighted in the same shining light as Jesus Christ's and Abraham's—the father of the beginning and the two saviors to save the world, and it's still not enough to keep the humans alive.

Castiel sits on a rock forlornly. He's looking for God so he can  _save_  them, really, but he is so...empty without Heaven. It takes him much longer to heal, and his wings need rest. He is not running on unlimited power anymore.

The sun falls and Castiel pulls out his cell phone. It is useful for finding Dean, if nothing else, and signal is bad up here, but he has it.

He listens to the only thing on there, the voice message Dean left him. Dean sounds drunk and exhausted on it, like he's officially given up, even as he pleads for Castiel to continue.  _Find God._  And Castiel feels  _guilty_  because Dean is breaking down over there and Castiel can't do anything.  _I just don't want to do this anymore_ , as if he's the only one who doesn't know how to carry on. Castiel is  _useless_  without Heaven; he loses his power without them, and now he can't even pull himself together enough to save Dean.

Dammit, Castiel just needs to find God. Everything ends once he finds God; once he gets proof that they are writing a story that is grander than the grandest story, it's all over. He has to believe that.

Hours pass, and he's so buried in his thoughts that he almost misses it when the whispering in the back of his head grows into a dull roar. Castiel snaps to attention, hoping against all hope that this is news meant to help  _him_ , and for his faith he is rewarded.

There is an archangel walking the Earth, and if Raphael doesn't know where God might be, Castiel thinks, then there's no one else he can ask.

He calls Bobby immediately, mostly because he can't make himself call Dean without real news, but also because Bobby with be able to find signs of Raphael walking the Earth. Castiel can't do that research on his own, unfortunately, because he is only one angel, but Bobby has a network and access to more information than he can sort through.

"Bobby," Castiel says when the phone picks up. "I need—"

"Cas?" Bobby says sharply. "That you?"

"Yes."

"Didn't think to mention that first?" he snaps.

Castiel frowns. Isn't it obvious that it's him calling?

Bobby sighs into the phone, his breath making static crawl through the receiver. "What d'you want, idjit?"

"I'm looking for something," Castiel says immediately, confusion forgotten. "It will be similar to signs of high demonic activity—lightning, sudden storms, humans acting strangely."

"What're you chasin'?" Bobby asks suspiciously. Castiel fights a sigh.

"Have you heard anything?" he presses, because he doesn't have time for questions.

Bobby is silent. "Yeah, I heard somethin' earlier," he says eventually. "Up in Waterville, Maine, there's been some sort of riot in a storm. Just started in the middle of the night; weather and news stations are goin' crazy trying to figure it all out. Sound like what you're looking for?"

"Yes," Castiel says. That sounds exactly like Raphael. "Where is Dean?"

"Why don't you call him yourself?" Bobby asks. "I've been up all night; I ain't your errand boy."

"Bobby," Castiel interrupts. "I can't find him anymore."

Bobby huffs into the phone irritably, but he says, "He's in Greeley, Pennsylvania. Baker Motel, room 221."

"Thank you."

Castiel hangs up. His hands shake like leaves in the wind.

\---

The Impala eats up the miles sickeningly slowly, her wheels crawling across the ground with not enough speed to keep Castiel calm in the passenger seat. He is used to traveling instantly, going from place to place in the time it takes to bat an eyelid, and she does not do that. She is earth-bound, tires to pavement, inching to Waterville, Maine, in hours instead of a blink.

Castiel usually moves in waves of light, in tiny photons of energy that amount to more than this car should rightfully hold. He has wings blacker than the emptiness of space and a sword that blinds with its power, a ring of light around his head and scars pulsing with his energy. He is an angel; he is capable of so much more than he is right here, and yet Castiel will always crawl into Dean's car and drive with him. Even though he could carry them faster, safer,  _better_ , he would rather be here, in the gentle limbo of the open road, letting fate and chance ferry them to their destination.

Sky is blue and Dean is green, and Castiel is achromatic and scarred, unworthy to exist in the same beautiful moments as Dean, but he is here on invitation. The leather on his seat is soft against his back; traces of Sam are all over this side of the car in the way there are books hiding on the floor and maps stuffed into the glove box. None of those things is like Dean because he navigates with instinct and reads road signs instead of compilations of archaic rituals. They are purely remnants of Sam because Dean will not give up enough to throw him out entirely.

He's kind that way, clean of envy and stained with love. Hell did its worst and even it couldn't truly break him, not beyond repair as Dean believes. Castiel sees a man with battle scars and wounds—some of them will never even heal—but he goes on. He lives and breathes into the sky, plotting beyond Heaven as he reaches for safety where he and his brother can stay. Dean is never envious of Sam. He is kind because he knows they are equally caught on this chessboard—hunting flows as surely thought Dean's blood as it does Sam's, and they will come back to each other.

The difference between Cain and Abel and Sam and Dean, the part that will stop the end of the world, is that Cain wandered the road alone. Dean has a passenger to meet the living road under their feet.

Now Dean is driving—of course he's driving—but he's driving without Sam to the place that will probably be Castiel's death and he doesn't even know it, and that makes all the difference. He has lost Sam and he will lose Castiel as well, but at least Sam always comes back to him.

Is dying worth it this time?

Castiel was sure, last time, when Dean was this new, shining thing breaking his walls apart, but now he is running only on desperation. He will do this because he has to; it is the only way to find God, and maybe it's not worth it to lose his life.

Castiel doesn't control that, though. He is a helpless passenger, the crewmember without an oar, because he is as swept along in this as Dean is. They are unwilling heroes thrust into the spotlight because there is no one else to step up and stop the Apocalypse.

Dawn is still creeping up the Eastern seaboard, fingers of color reaching up like God's hands, rose pink and pastel orange, and even Dean's soul, glowing next to him like a torch, filters green into the dawn. The final day is beginning so smoothly, and that's alright with him.

\---

After the fiasco with that woman, Dean drives them back to the rundown house they're staying in. He doesn't turn the music on, but he keeps chuckling softly to himself. Castiel isn't quite sure what he did that was so funny, but Dean is laughing for the first time in too long, and Castiel has never seen him so carefree. It must be something about an imminent death sentence, because Castiel's feeling lighter too.

"Man, I don't know how I'm gonna get you laid now," Dean says when they get inside. "I didn't really have a plan B."

"It's not necessary, Dean," Castiel says, listening to the way the house creaks underneath his feet. "I'm an angel; I don't need sexual release before I die."

"Need's got nothin' to do with it, Cas," Dean says, despite the way he winces at the words 'sexual release.' Castiel blinks in surprise.

"I thought that was—"

Dean shakes his head. "It's just—it's a human experience, and you've been pretty into those lately."

Oh.

"Oh."

"You don't know what you're missing, y'know? It's great, it's really great, and you're never gonna find out how great it can be because you're going to die tomorrow." Dean sounds anguished and upset, not just about himself, but Cas' fate as well.

"It's a sin, anyway," Castiel says quietly when he can't think of anything else to say.

Dean's head snaps up. "Says who?" he demands.

"Lust is a sin, Dean," Castiel says tiredly. "I thought we'd already talked about lust and chastity."

"No, not in so many words," Dean says, squinting. "Not that I want you to give me the abstinence talk or anything, but I really don't think you've mentioned the 'not allowed to have sex part' of being an angel."

Castiel fights rolling his eyes. "I assumed it was implicit in what I was."

"You know what they say about assuming," Deans says distractedly, digging through his bag for something. Castiel frowns at him, because he really  _doesn't_  know what they say about assuming. It sounds vaguely like the train wreck analogy that Dean explained to him week ago. "Lust isn't a bad thing, Cas."

"It's a sin," Castiel says simply. "As God commanded it, so it shall be."

"How can you say that?" Dean asks, stuffing something in his pocket before he closes his bag. "How can you  _know_  when you don't really know?"

"God commanded it," Castiel says. He doesn't have an argument because this conversation is drawing entirely too close to ones Castiel has had in his head before, and it makes him nervous.

"God commands a lot of shit," Dean says, and Castiel thinks,  _Well, He's God_.

Dean sits down by the window where moonlight falls onto him. Castiel watches the way the shadows of his face deepen in the harshness and how his freckles stand out in stark contrast to his silver washed face. He's gained new ones since Castiel put his body back together, and he doesn't know Dean as well as he once did.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing by trying to find my Father?" Castiel asks suddenly. Dean's jaw twitches

"I am the last person in the world who should judge you for that," Dean says, and it's really not an answer.

"Dean..."

Dean fumbles a flask out of his jacket and takes a drink, then another, before he screws the cap back on and puts it back. Castiel doesn't know when he started carrying alcohol around with him like that. "I don't think you should," Dean finally snaps. He sounds nervous. "He's  _God_ , Cas, if He doesn't want to be found, He's not going to let anyone find Him. He's not going to just jump up if you find Him and start putting Lucifer back in his place."

"What else am I supposed to do, Dean?" Castiel asks quietly. He  _knows_  all of this; he knows it's a long shot and a last hope, but he doesn't think there are any other options.

"I also don't think there's anything else you can do."

Castiel drops into the seat across from him and stares up at the moon where it peeks through the window. The moon touches all the surfaces of the Earth with its light, and Castiel doesn't even know if God is touching those too, now. He might be somewhere farther away than the angels have ever dared to go, in a land deeper in the abyss of space; He could be under Castiel's feet right now, but he'd never know the difference.

"I think you were right," Castiel says instead.

"Yeah? What about?" Dean says. He won't look at Castiel.

"About God fucking up." Castiel swallows heavily as he stares down at the table, scratching at an old mark in it with his finger. He's turning fidgety like a human and he's never said any of this out loud before. "I think that's why I was brought back after Raphael, because He still wants me to stop all of this."

Dean's breath hitches. "You think He'll bring you back tomorrow?"

Castiel wants to lie. He wants to say that it will all be okay, and he will survive everything that befalls them tomorrow because God has commanded it. (Really, he wants to make Dean smile again.)

"Probably not," he answers honestly. Castiel has had his chance.

"Dammit, Cas," Dean growls suddenly, slamming his fist on the table, and fire burns in his eyes when he turns to Castiel. He looks determined, and Castiel feels lightheaded. It's an increasingly problematic symptom he's experiencing around Dean, and he can feel it stems from the instinct in this vessel. What it means, though, is unknowable, because all Castiel understands is that he likes when Dean starts to care about things again. He likes Dean when he is passionate and patient, and when he shows interest in Castiel above all other things around them.

It doesn't  _mean_  anything, though, not anything significant to Castiel, but the way Dean looks at him makes him second-guess himself. Is this one of those human things he doesn't quite understand yet? He just doesn't  _know_ , and it's frustrating, because the only person who he could ask is Dean, but he can't. Dean is something entirely too confusing to categorize, and Castiel doesn't think he'd react well to hearing that Castiel sometimes stops breathing in his presence.

"Do you trust me?" Dean says softly. Castiel has no idea when Dean went from sitting to standing, but now he is hovering over Castiel with a faintly worried look on his face.

"Of course," Castiel answers. Dean turns, and Castiel follows him through the house like a magnet is pulling him. Dean won't meet his eyes, but that only makes him more curious.

He isn't expecting it when Dean kisses him.

The whole thing is tentative and awkward and there are  _sirens_  going off in Castiel's head, he's so overwhelmed. Dean is the strangest shade of home he's ever felt, with the way his dry lips touch Castiel's like they were made to fit there, and Castiel thinks that they  _were_ , that this has been hovering in the back of his mind since he met Dean in Hell.

Dean finally grunts in annoyance, and suddenly he's kissing Castiel harder, and that's amazing too. Dean's mouth moves softly over his and Dean's tongue flicks out to lick across Castiel's lower lip. Castiel gasps at that, his heart going haywire in his chest; everything is warm and wet as Dean licks gently into his mouth, threading his tongue along Castiel's like he's done this a million times. There's something so _sinful_  about it because Castiel is an  _angel_  and he shouldn't be sliding a hand into the Righteous Man's hair and letting the other rest at the side of his ribs, but he is, and he's falling in love with it as his wings flair high into the air.

He learns quickly, taking Dean's direction on when to pull back and tease, when to put his teeth to better use, and when to move forward until Dean is cradled between Castiel and the wall. Dean whines in the back of his throat, hands fisted in Castiel's hair, and kissing is the most remarkable thing.

Dean says something into his mouth, and Castiel really should back off and  _listen_ , but there's this spot on the side of Dean's neck, and if he strokes it with his thumb and bites Dean's lip at the same time, Dean moans unashamedly. Castiel wants to steal that sound out of his mouth and drag it into his grace to keep it with him forever.

He finally understands that Dean is saying, "Hold on," and Castiel backs off slowly. He leaves Dean's mouth free, but he doesn't let him go, and Dean doesn't untangle himself from Castiel's hair.

"Just—I know you said it's a sin," Dean pants, "but I'm offering. You know. If you want."

Castiel almost  _dies_  with how much he wants,  _yes_ , because this is Dean, and he dives back into Dean's mouth with a low growl in the back of his throat. Dean lets him take, lets Castiel move closer and closer until Dean has to be suffocating under the weight Castiel is putting on his chest, but he doesn't complain, not once. His hands pull Castiel closer, sliding under the trench coat and suit jacket when they get in the way, and Castiel is lightheaded again. Fingers trace the bumps of his spine, his shoulders, and Castiel slips a hand up Dean's shirt to rest on his stomach like a brand.

Dean is warm above his clothes and scalding underneath, threatening to melt Castiel's hand so they are joined eternally in flesh and blood. His muscles twitch as Castiel taps his finger, and he backs away so he can watch Dean's expression and revel in the fact that he has caused it.

There's this thing that Dean does, and Castiel doesn't quite get it at first, how Dean is leaning in to kiss the underside of his jaw, sucking and licking across Castiel's throat. But Dean reaches this spot right below Castiel's ear and nips him with his teeth, and Castiel sees stars. His hands tighten reflexively, flying down to grip Dean's hips, and he gasps when Dean bites at him again, lower this time.

Castiel has been missing this for all of time when he could have been here, in this moment, with kisses on his neck and love curling through his heart. Dean tugs Castiel's shirt out of his pants and pushes up until he is cupping Castiel's shoulder blades, drawing them impossibly closer together even as his head backs away to rest against the wall.

He watches Dean breathe, every breath heaving out of him like an afterthought. His lips are shiny and his cheeks are flushed, baring his freckles to Castiel's hungry eyes. Castiel runs another hand through Dean's hair just because he can, and because it makes Dean look wrecked in a way Castiel never thought he could appreciate. Castiel isn't physically attracted to humans, he isn't, but this is Dean, and Dean's soul, and Dean's love, and Castiel loves him for his soul, not his appearance. It's an accident that he looks beautifully broken like this, flushed and warm and like he was made for Castiel.

"Cas," Dean whispers, and he huffs out a gentle laugh.

"Why are you laughing?" Castiel asks. He can feel Dean's breath against his lips.

"I'm just—I don't know," Dean says, and he opens his eyes. His pupils are blown wide, eyes shining with some uncontrollable emotion, and Castiel lusts. It's a sin and he shouldn't, but he does, and he  _wants_.

Dean starts to pull his jacket off, and Castiel reluctantly steps back to let him. He rids himself of his own coats because they're getting in the way, tossing them carelessly to the floor as he watches Dean pull off his shirt. His body is scarred again. Castiel fixed him once, but he cannot stop the pain of the job Dean does, and the stitches just above his stomach are healing still.

"What happened?" Castiel breathes, quiet because he isn't sure if he's allowed.

Dean sucks in a breath as the tips of Castiel's fingers pass over the wound softly, and he says, "Got on the wrong side of a ghost. You know how they are."

Castiel doesn't, but the way Dean's lips move when he talks is hypnotizing, and he can't help but pull them back to his. Dean exhales into him, hands curling around Castiel's arms as Castiel touches the skin he sewed back together. He can feel everything he was never allowed to touch—the trail of hair down Dean's stomach is coarser than he ever could imagine, and Dean's lower back feels more powerful underneath his touch than it seemed without, and Castiel feels invincible with Dean against him.

Dean has Castiel's mark on him, too, the brand on his shoulder and the memorial of their first meeting. He slides his hand over it, holding Dean against the wall with a touch and a kiss, and sparks  _fly_  up his arm. Dean shouts into Castiel's mouth, his whole body arching away from the wall. An electric hum settles in Castiel's hand as Dean sags back, arms twitching around Castiel's waist.

"Holy shit," Dean gasps, clutching at Castiel's hand and pressing it harder into his shoulder. His teeth clench as he throws his head back again. Castiel watches in awe, his fingers tightening unconsciously and drawing a whimper out of Dean, his throat working furiously even as no more noise comes out.

"Dean?" he asks

"What—what is, oh  _fuck_ , what is that?"

"My grace."

Castiel watches Dean bite his lip, eyes wide open and unseeing. His gaze traces the curve of Dean's lashes and the jut of his chin, familiar at first but wholly new when Castiel presses gentle kisses to it. He strokes his thumb over Dean's shoulder, and Dean arches up one last time, his hips rolling into Castiel.

It's a completely new sensation, the one that explodes behind his eyes, because Castiel's thigh has found its way between Dean's legs, and there's nothing but  _pleasure_  exploding through him, unlike anything he's ever felt before. He rocks his hips back against Dean's, and his reward is a moan and more of the unexplainable desire that feels like an ocean wave crashing over him.

His hands wander from Dean's shoulders, but Castiel can still feel the aftermath of the feeling of his grace touching Dean's very  _soul_. Humans aren't meant to feel that, but Dean is, and his mouth is making needy, helpless noises as he rolls his hips against Castiel, lips parted and hands fisting in the back of Castiel's shirt.

Castiel moves on instinct, pulling Dean's head down and into a kiss while his other hand slides down, fingers catching on the waist of Dean's pants and pulling his thigh up until Castiel can press his hip right against the line of Dean's dick. Dean growls into his mouth, tugging at the buttons on Castiel's shirt and clawing at his tie, but there's hardly any room to maneuver the way they're standing so close to each other.

Dean's mouth is slick, swollen, and brightly colored when Castiel pulls away. He misses the connection immediately as Dean's leg slides down to the ground, but taking his shirt off sounds like a much better plan right now. Dean doesn't let him go far, fingers working at the knot of Castiel's tie while his teeth nibble under Castiel's chin. He can hardly get his mind wrapped around unbuttoning his shirt when Dean does that.

When the shirt finally slips off Castiel's shoulders, they embrace again, kissing messily, desperate in the moonlight pouring in through the single window.

"Come here," Dean murmurs, kicking off his shoes and withdrawing to the old, dusty mattress he threw blankets over earlier that day. Castiel mimics him, shoes and socks off before he crawls on the bed to lie beside Dean.

He brings a hand to Dean's face, running his thumb over the soft warmth of Dean's lower lip and watching as the skin pulls against him. There's a freckle just beside Dean's nose that Castiel didn't put there when he raised him from Hell. Castiel kisses it gently, his mouth barely touching Dean's skin, and when they break apart again, Dean's eyes flutter open.

"What was that for?" he asks.

"You have a freckle," Castiel says, tearing his gaze away from it to look Dean in the eyes. "I didn't remake you with that one."

Dean's brow wrinkles slightly. "How do you know that?" he says.

"I know your body inside and out," Castiel says. He can't stop his hand from stroking down Dean's side as he speaks, because Dean is addictive in the best possible way. "You were dead for four months up here, Dean; I had to do more than simply raise your soul from perdition."

"Gross," Dean says, but he doesn't look particularly bothered by the implication that he was once a rotting corpse. "Inside, you say?"

Castiel snorts despite himself, and Dean looks surprised but pleased. "I do not think we're using the phrase in the same context."

"No, probably not," Dean says, moving to lean over Castiel on one arm. "But we could be."

His smirk is one hundred percent authentic Dean Winchester and his eyes are lighting up again. Castiel pulls him down roughly, probably bruising his forearm, but Dean can handle it, and their lips crash together again in the most spectacular way as Dean catches himself on the mattress. He mumbles something into the kiss, but Castiel doesn't understand.

Dean doesn't pull away to repeat it, so it can't be all that important.

Castiel devolves into feeling. He grazes Dean's skin with his fingertips, and they can feel every spider web crack buried between the cells. Counting the bones in his spine, Castiel presses his thumb into the side of one vertebra halfway down Dean's back. Dean moans loudly, hissing into the air when Castiel digs in harder, and Castiel's hips twitch at the way his mouth shines in the moonlight, mind casually noting the elliptical equation Dean makes with his lips.

Everything is washed in silver, even Dean pulling his belt off and nearly falling onto the floor, and Castiel lays a hand against the inward curve of his back.

"This is the part where you move your hand farther down, Cas," Dean whines, fumbling with the button on his jeans without moving off Castiel.

"If you're complaining still, I think I'm doing something wrong," Castiel says.

"Yeah, well," Dean says, and he tries to wiggle his jeans off, but it isn't working. "Fuck."

Castiel rolls them over gently, and Dean struggles to kick his pants the rest of the way off. He is so comfortable here above Dean, holding him against the mattress and worshiping his mouth, and Castiel splays his hand just below the burn on Dean's shoulder. That same buzzing from before is still tingling under his skin, only now it is laced with arousal as well.

His pants feel tight and vaguely uncomfortable. He sighs against Dean's mouth before he pulls back, kneeling so he can get the dress pants out of the way, but Dean just follows him, biting kisses all across Castiel's chest. Castiel gasps, gripping the back of Dean's head as soon as he has a free hand, and then Dean is pushing the rest of their clothing away.

There's something about being skin to skin in the human way. Hell was different, holding Dean's soul to him, because there was no sensation in that. Now, everything is hot, hard, literally, and Castiel feels the most perverse rush of pleasure when he feels Dean's cock rubbing against his thigh. He's sinning right now, lusting and having sex, and Castiel  _does not care_.

He doesn't care when Dean hooks a leg up around his thighs, or when he licks the shell of Castiel's ear and moans into it when they rock together. Everything is passion, and some sort of warmth is building in the very bottom of his stomach. Castiel's breath is harsh—he isn't even kissing Dean anymore, just writhing against him, and he wants to fix that, pulling his hips back and away even as Dean whines and tries to pull him back.

"Here," Dean says breathlessly, feeling around for something off the mattress before he presses a small bottle into Castiel's hand. "You know what to do?"

Castiel pauses. He knows this process vaguely; the millennia he spent watching over humans has left him no stranger to what they do in their beds, but there's a difference between having inexplicit knowledge and actually having sex with Dean.

"That's not reassuring," Dean says, laughing even as he kisses the confused tilt of Castiel's mouth. His eyes are shining, mostly only black and white now, and Castiel just wants to hold him here forever. "Just—follow my lead."

Dean eases them over until he's on top of Castiel, pressing him back onto the bed with a filthy kiss. He bites harshly at Castiel's lips, gripping their cocks in his hand and holding them there as he rolls his hips forward. Castiel could fight, could flip them and make Dean take it, but he likes the way Dean settles his weight onto him, and the thought of what the position entails makes his blood rush and his cock twitch excitedly.

The sound of a cap flipping open echoes in the silence when Dean straightens up, legs straddling Castiel's hips comfortably. "It's been a while for me," Dean says, pouring lube onto his fingers. "So this might take a little longer."

Castiel's throat is tight. "That's alright," he murmurs, watching Dean's hand like a hawk as he shifts up and moves it behind him. Castiel doesn't know where to look—at the hint of Dean's hand just behind his balls or the slack pleasure on his face, so he forces himself to back off and become a little less human so he can watch it all. Dean's breath hitches slightly when he pushes a finger into himself and his toes curl when he pushes it deeper. His eyelids flutter, his hips jerk, his other hand squeezes the muscle of his thigh because he is overcome, and greatest of all, he whispers, "Cas," while he does it.

Castiel watches in awe as one finger becomes two and all the while he strokes up and down Dean's chest, across his legs, over his cock, and that last one makes Dean twist his hips wantonly into Castiel's fist. Castiel does it again, moving down from the head and back up to swipe his thumb over the slit, and Dean moans his name again, louder this time, with an added  _fuck_  thrown in there.

"You are so beautiful, Dean," Castiel says lowly. The wrong word will break the silence, despite what he wants to say, and Castiel tries to show it as he reaches farther back and traces where Dean is splitting himself open on three fingers.

"Lube," Dean bites out, twisting a hand in the blanket. Castiel understands immediately, but it takes him a moment to find the bottle where it has found its way under Dean's shin, and Dean moans impatiently during that time.

The first finger, Castiel slides it in alongside two of Dean's. He's tight, scorching hot, and Castiel loses himself in the feeling of Dean falling apart as he crooks his finger just right—inside and out, he said, and he damn well meant it—and then Dean withdraws his hand.

"I'm ready," he says, rising up to his knees. Already, Dean's perfectly bowed thighs are shaking with exertion, but he doesn't seem to notice as Castiel brushes his prostrate one last time for good measure. Dean slicks up Castiel's cock impatiently, batting his hands out of the way when he tries to touch Dean.

"Don't distract me," Dean says, shuffling up until he's positioned over the head of Castiel's dick. "And please tell me lightning isn't going to strike me dead the second we do this."

"No one is going to smite you, Dean," Castiel says with such certainty that Dean pauses to look at him. He's drawn back immediately to that time in the old motel kitchen, with his hand to Dean's forehead, threatening to toss him back to Hell, and he says it again. "No one is going to smite you. Not without my permission."

Dean's mouth twists into a rough, broken smile. "I trust you, Cas, if you can believe that. I actually trust you."

He doesn't give Castiel time to respond.

Dean sinks down slowly, his hips stuttering every inch. Castiel grabs his hand, gives him something to hold onto, and Dean laces their fingers together without a word, tossing his head back as he rises on Castiel's dick.

Being inside Dean is a curious sensation. On one hand, Castiel feels like he's about to fall to pieces in the center of a tornado, and on the other, he  _is_  the tornado, urging Dean up and down and telling him when to twist his hips. Dean's breath catches with every rise and fall, sounding like sweet music in Castiel's ears.

He doesn't realize that he's saying Dean's name until he says it so loudly he breaks his train of thought.

" _Dean_ , Dean, DeanDean _Dean_ ," he moans, head jerking as he fights the urge to buck his hips up into that warmth. Never mind Dean or control— _Castiel_  is coming apart, his mind shattering into pieces and his wings thrashing relentlessly. This is beyond anything he ever could have dreamed of, and Dean just rocks his hips down onto Castiel.

"Jesus, motherfuck, Cas," Dean pants, leaning over until his forehead touches Castiel's. "Feels so good inside me, fuck. Been too long."

Castiel groans, " _Dean_ ," and thrusts up so Dean gets the point.

Dean laughs, but only a little, because Castiel has already calculated the three best angles to thrust to turn Dean into a mess, and he's the only creature in the world with enough dedication to move in those paths perfectly each time. Dean pulls back from Castiel after they kiss, and Castiel can't let him go. He follows Dean up easily, one hand on Dean's ass and the other in his hair.

He fucks his tongue into Dean's mouth at the same slow pace as his cock, his hands keeping Dean in place as he hits that place with his cock again and again. Dean says things, moans others, and Castiel can't understand a word he's saying, but he doesn't care. He gets the message in the way Dean's cock twitches and his mouth slackens each time Castiel rolls his hips up, and the way they move together is like clockwork.

The thing, the warmth, builds inside Castiel again, making him fuck Dean harder and harder, and by the time he recognizes what it means, he is coming in a hot rush of blinding light. His hand grips over Dean's mark instinctively, sending electricity through him as his wings curl around them, enclosing their bodies in feathers and light, even if Dean can't see it. Dean is coming too, actually, his ass tightening around Castiel's cock convulsively as he screams out another blasphemous prayer, and Castiel wishes he could watch Dean's face while it happens, but he can't move out of the paralyzing backwards arch his spine makes as he comes.

Dean's name falls from his lips as he comes down, and it's only then that Castiel realizes how tightly he is clutching Dean to his chest. His hand lingers on Dean's shoulder, the connection faded down into a manageable buzz, and Castiel kisses Dean's cheek. He does it again and again, and then keeps going because he feels he should touch all of Dean's freckles and recount them to see if his current number is close or not.

Dean doesn't let him, though, pushing Castiel's face away with a grumble and sliding off his lap gingerly.

"Virgin," Dean snorts, laying down on the mattress. "Yeah, right."

"I was," Castiel says truthfully. He knows a lot about sex in theory, and most of it seems to apply well in use.

"I'm going to pass out," Dean says, yawning instead of arguing. "Get down here, and if you ever tell anyone I let you stay in bed, they will never find your body." Castiel frowns at that. It doesn't make much sense at all, but it seems to satisfy Dean when he nods and pulls a blanket up to cover them.

Castiel doesn't sleep; he's never slept in his life, but Dean passes out using his chest as a pillow, and Castiel fades into unawareness with him. It's too soon to think about anything.

\---

"Welcome back, Dean," Castiel says, running his hands across Dean's chest. "Good dream?" It's those eyes again, the ones reflecting interstellar space, and they are almost blinding in their intensity.

Dean shudders as sulfuric breath fans over his face, clawing down into his lungs and making his vision turn to tears. "No," he whispers, but it doesn't stop Castiel from squeezing his wrists until they snap and Dean screams himself hoarse.

"Didn't you miss me?" Castiel asks, expression lit up in fake innocence. He drives an iron spike thought Dean's sternum and another into his thigh. Dean howls at the burn, but Castiel is there to cover his mouth and force Dean to stare into his eyes.

He has a pile of stakes waiting on the floor and Dean's sins waiting to be avenged. They could be here forever.

\---

"Dean," Castiel says, shaking Dean's shoulders just this side of too rough. Dean's eyes snap open and he's staring into blue fire, spinning, burning, and he bucks upward to throw the demon away because he's _free_  for once and—

But this Castiel smells like sex, not sulfur, and he looks scared instead of entertained. Dean gasps for breath, eyes twitching to trace over every detail of Castiel's face, and this isn't a demon pulling him out of sleep; it's an angel, his angel, and they're both very much naked. Because Dean had sex. With Castiel.

Dean collapses back to the bed. "Cas," he whispers hoarsely, mind spinning. His ass stings, and it's uncomfortably wet. "Cas, is that you?"

"Of course, Dean," he says, smoothing his thumb over Dean's cheek. "Who else would I be?"

Shaking his head, Dean turns his face away. He glances out the window—dawn is definitely here, and nightmares aside, he actually slept through the entire night.

Castiel leans over him, face light and mouth smiling so slightly.

"Don't worry about last night," Dean says suddenly to quell the panic rising up in him when he sees the fire burning closer to him. "Doesn't have to mean anything."

And Castiel blinks, blinks again, and the smiles slides off his face. "Of course it doesn't, Dean," he says. "I—never thought it would."

Dean forces a grin. "Good," he says, and he ignores the relief in the pit of his stomach when he doesn't have to pretend he's seeing anything but an angel.


	10. God Bless Our Dead Marines

Dean does not live to meet expectations, thanks. He's allergic to "the plan" and he does not intend to follow Zachariah's orders anytime soon, and this whole  _sent to the future_ thing only shows him that he has to get Sam back, not any of the other crap Zachariah wants him to learn. It's obvious, and he's kind of surprised Zachariah missed how easily this could turn Dean back to Sam.

Point is, he's not gonna back down—not for anything, not even if this dickhead angel tries to teach him just one more lesson or a hundred. Lucifer's right. Dean's not gonna kill Sam, he won't say yes to Michael, and he is going to spend the rest of his life hunting the devil if it kills him. And if it breaks the angel at his side and ends in Dean's death, well, Sam's still breathing. He might be the devil, but he's still breathing. Sacrificing everything, Cas included, absolutely  _aches_ , but he knows it's the truth.

He knows, too, that he could spend a hundred years in Zachariah's little classrooms if that's what Zachariah wanted, and Dean would spend the time wearing down. Last time that happened, when creatures beyond him tried to break him down, Dean fell. He doesn't want to be the weak, pathetic animal that breaks at the slightest pressure against his mind, but he lost himself in just thirty years once, and it will happen again if he's put in that position.

As Zachariah advances, Dean steels himself. He knows torture better than this angel, knows what to expect and how to make his mind float off into the distance where there is nothing but emptiness. He can handle it, if just for a little while.

What he doesn't expect is Castiel.

Never, not once in his life, has Dean ever expected Castiel. The way it happens is one minute, Dean is staring down Zachariah and hoping that someone will save him, and then he is watching the open road and Castiel is behind him. Dean never even realized he was praying for a real angel.

"That's pretty nice timing, Cas," he says, and it feels like he's on the edge of something tall and deep and heart wrenching.

Castiel, he says, "We had an appointment."

And it's just like that.

Whatever Sam says about him, Dean isn't completely emotionally unavailable. He tries to play it off a lot of the time, it's true, because that's the way he was raised and those lessons never left him, but Dean doesn't practice internal denial nearly as much as he does externally. It still happens a lot, but he's smart enough to know that when his heart thuds once, skips, and crashes back into time, he's not as he was before. He became something else in that moment.

"Don't ever change," Dean says instead of the new truth, because inside he's choking on emotion.

Cas' gaze is soft. "How did Zachariah find you?"

And that's probably the question of the hour, Dean thinks. "Long story," he says. "Let's just stay away from Jehovah's Witnesses from now on, okay?" He pulls out his phone and thumbs down to Sam's contact number. It's clear, what he has to do, because Zachariah has put it all in stark perspective.

"What are you doing?" Cas asks quietly.

One corner of Dean's mouth curls up, and he says, "Something I should have done in the first place."

He hits talk and listens to it ring, acutely aware of Castiel standing at his side and watching his every move. It rings and rings, and Dean resigns himself to just leaving a message when it cuts off.

"Dean?"

"Hey, Sammy," Dean says, blowing out a breath of air and turning so his back is to Cas.

"What's up?"

"If you still want back in," Dean says slowly, "I—I'll be—"

"Of course I still want back in," Sam interrupts, voice jumping. "I never should have left, Dean, I never should have agreed."

"Yeah," Dean says, and the lump crawling up his throat is embarrassing.

"Just tell me where and when, man," Sam says, and he sounds so painfully grateful that Dean wants to kill himself for ever suggesting they part ways. They never work well without each other. The time between getting Sam from Stanford and leaving his dad to start hunting on his own is still one of the worst memories of Dean's life, and even Hell knew and used that to its advantage.

Dean spills out a place without thinking, says when he gets there he'll wait for Sam to show up, and Sam thanks him a million times.

"Don't sweat it, Sammy," Dean says, nodding to himself. "We're gonna stop these sons of bitches if it's the last thing we do."

"Yeah," Sam says fervently, and Dean can just see his wide, hopeful eyes. God, he hopes Sam never becomes what Dean saw back there in the garden, because there is too much promise in a world that is never destroyed by angels.

Dean hangs up, snapping his phone shut and clutching it tightly in his fist.

"Do you know what Zachariah showed me?" he asks Cas after a long silence, voice pulling roughly from his throat.

"No, Dean."

"He sent me to the future. 2014, five years from now, and he showed me what life was gonna be like then." Dean shakes his head. "It wasn't Earth anymore. Sam, he—he said yes, and I never did. Lucifer destroyed the world because of it. The people, they were all gone, Cas. The only thing left was—was nothing."

Cas touches Dean's elbow hesitantly. "What did you see, Dean?" His voice is the gentlest Dean has ever heard it. He tries to swallow, but he can't make his throat work.

"We were in a refugee camp. You—you lost your grace, you were just a human, and you lost it, man. You were poppin' pills and sleeping with all the women, and I didn't care about anything. I sent you to your death, and you trusted me. You trusted that me and you died." Dean shakes his head helplessly. "They all trusted me, and I killed them all."

"It's not you, Dean," Cas says. "It's one possible future, and it's not going to happen here."

"Yeah, that's—that's why I called Sam," Dean whispers as Cas' fingers curl around his arm. "Because in their world, we never joined back up again. The devil was in Detroit and Sam said yes to him there, and we never saw each other again, not when we were both still human." Dean snorts and stuffs his hands in his pockets, but Castiel doesn't let go.

They've been wrong before. It used to be such a good idea to kill Lilith, when it sounded like the only chance at salvation they had, but it became their downfall. They've never been able to work around Chuck's visions, never done anything that wasn't carved into stone millions of years ago, and Dean doesn't know which way is right. Maybe this time is different and Sam only says yes because he and Dean ended back up in the same car again , or maybe Dean has to kick him out again because it's all too much.

_We will always end up here._

If fate is so insistent, why tell him there's another way? Why does Dean have to deal with the knowing, the waiting for Sam to turn around one day and become the devil?

"Dean," Cas says softly, and the sound of flapping wings surrounds them. Dean opens his eyes to the inside of some hotel room, a nice one, with unstained carpets and a bathroom that doesn't come with six different kinds of mold on the tiles.

"Shit, Cas, I can't afford this," Dean says, but Cas ignores him.

"No one will attempt to enter this room," he says, marching Dean over to the couch and pushing him down. "No one will know you're here."

"Stop, Cas, what the hell?" Dean says, shaking the hands off and trying to stand back up. Cas just glares at him and holds him there with a hand on his shoulder. "Dude, I need to get on the road, I gotta meet Sam. You can't just keep me here."

"I can take you to Sam tomorrow," Cas says. "But from what I understand about humans, after they go through traumatizing experiences, they require rest and recuperation, and you won't find that in the car, Dean."

"I'm  _fine_ , Cas," Dean says, but it's weak. He's exhausted, body and soul, and he's hungry as hell and possibly a little dehydrated.

"I'll be back soon," Castiel says instead.

"What? No, you son of a—dammit, Cas!"

Dean stares around the empty hotel room, at a loss, and when he tries the door, it's locked from the inside. He throws the refrigerator open next—also not moldy, how pleasant—and there's food in there. Mostly vegetables and crap like that, but Dean's stomach is growling and his head feels weird, so he tosses together a sandwich and calls it good. At least there's meat.

Cas turns up after an hour of Dean staring at the wall across the table. His plate sits empty and forgotten, but he isn't hungry anymore.

"Dean?" Cas asks carefully.

"Yeah?"

"I brought pie."

Dean looks up. Cas is standing there with a thin paper plate in his hands, apple pie still steaming on top with ice cream and caramel melting everywhere. It smells like cinnamon and nutmeg.

"I'm not hungry," Dean says, looking away and fighting the edge of nausea.

Castiel sets the plate down uncertainly. "I don't...understand," he says, frustrated. "You haven't explained to me what happened and I don't—"

"Haven't  _explained_?" Dean says, shocked. "My brother said yes to the  _devil_ , Cas, what the hell more do you want to know?"

"He hasn't said yes yet," Cas says, and Dean wants to wrap his hands around Cas' neck and squeeze him until he listens, because  _that doesn't matter_. Because fate and destiny have always been jerking them around, like a dog on a choke chain, and there's absolutely no reason for that to suddenly change now.

"You don't get it," Dean finally says through his teeth. "You weren't there; you didn't see what I turned into, or Sam, or what  _you_ turned into, Cas. You don't—"

Cas snarls and grabs Dean by the wrist, hauling him up from the table. "Don't presume to tell me what I don't know, Dean Winchester, because you are a boy with no knowledge of my life. Are you under the impression that I don't know what it's like to have your family leave you? Do you not understand that I hate what I've turned into?" He throws Dean back onto the couch, and Dean sees red.

"This isn't about you, Cas!" he shouts. "This is about the whole fucking world, not your daddy issues. Fuck!"

"You're right," Castiel says, and his voice is low and on the edge of uncontrolled. "This isn't about me, but that doesn't make it about  _you_. You don't get to be  _sad_  when the world is sitting on your shoulders about to end and you know how to stop it."

"I don't—" Dean says, but Cas plows on.

"Do you know what I had, Dean? I had unlimited power, unlimited knowledge, the sky at my  _fingertips_ , and I gave it up. I can't hear my brothers anymore, and my head feels empty all the time," Cas says, his eyes blazing the fire that sets Dean's mind on edge. "And here I am, empty and wrong. Do you know what that feels like, Dean? Can you understand that?"

Dean sets his jaw and looks away.

"You're right," Cas says, quieter. "You don't know. And you can never know. But remember that Lucifer is as much my brother as Sam is yours, and I understand what it is like to lose a brother to the darkness. I have lost many, and you only have one."

God, he always makes Dean feel like shit. He doesn't even have to do much, just tell Dean what's actually going on with him, and Dean fucking snaps because he can't handle the guilt. It's not a contest, and he knows that, because it doesn't matter who's in worse pain or who's lost more family. Still, Dean has to fight it—he has to, he was born and raised a fighter. If he can't kill something, he burns it, and if he can't burn it, it's probably Sam.

He can kill anything; he can burn the rest. Sam fits outside all of those categories, and Cas is even more of an outsider because Dean didn't grow up with a predetermined space for Castiel. He's something utterly different, and even Sam can't make Dean feel remorse like Cas can.

"We can do this, Dean," Cas says, and he pulls Dean up from the couch. "But we have to do it together. We  _all_  have to do it together."

There's something so hypnotizing about Castiel and Dean just falls into him. Their lips meet like waves meeting the shoreline, crashing into completion, and Dean doesn't know what he's doing anymore as he thinks about wrenching his body away and just falls into Cas' arms instead.

Cas matches all his aggression with patience, turning Dean and pressing him against a wall so he can control it. His hands rest gently on Dean's hips, thumbs moving in soothing circles just under his shirt and jacket, and his tongue soothes over Dean's bottom lip after his teeth nip harshly at it.

He kisses Dean, holding him and sending something moving deep in Dean's chest. It's that same damn feeling as before, the one where Dean is about to hurtle off a cliff. He pretends he's doesn't understand it, he ignores it, and he lets himself be kissed. Because Dean may have started this, but he is in no way in charge of it, and he's much more accepting of that than he probably should be.

It ends naturally, with Dean's heart racing and his lips bitten-red, and he realizes that his hand is fisted in Castiel's messy tie. Cas doesn't move away, and he stays, staring with his eyes flicking all over Dean's face.

Dean licks his lip and tells himself he imagined Castiel's gaze tracking the movement, and he says, "That...shouldn't have happened."

"Of course," Castiel says stiffly, and Dean thinks maybe he should stop instigating things with Cas when it upsets him so much. They have to do this together, he said, and Dean shouldn't mess with the weird equilibrium they've cultivated between them.

Smoothing out the lapels of Cas' coat, Dean pushes him gently away . He goes easily enough, taking careful, measured steps until he is on the other side of the room.

"You should sleep," Cas says, looking at the bed. "I will take you to Sam tomorrow."

"Thanks, Cas," Dean says.

Sometimes he feels like he missed something important.

\---

Castiel's wings are so large and  _pretty_. They stretch out so far when Dean's chains pull them apart, feathers flaring and muscles straining to keep from breaking the delicate, hollow bones inside them, and they're so black they shimmer like oil. Dean rakes his fingers through the feathers along the top bone and grins at Castiel's little whimper. So beautiful.

"You're so perfect for me like this, baby," Dean says, tracing Castiel's lips with his finger. He tips the tip inside and sighs, humming a song to himself. "God. So warm."

Cas wrenches his head away and his whole body strains against the chains. Dean made them himself, though; they're built to hold angels in, and he wouldn't waste his time on something that didn't work in the end.

Dean drags his nails across Castiel's stomach, hard enough that the skin turns red and raised after he's done, and he follows each line carefully with his tongue.

"Has anyone ever told you that your hips are like knives?" Dean asks, scraping his teeth over the jut of bone just below Cas' pelvis. Castiel shivers beneath him. "I really, really like knives," Dean says breathlessly, scrambling for his cart.

His favorite one is on top, the wood-hilted, shining gold blade winking up at him. Dean keeps it sharp because it slices skin with the barest pressure that way, and he likes to leave tiny, razor thin cuts everywhere on the bodies. It doesn't bleed much, true, but it's gorgeous anyway.

"C'mon, Cas," Dean pants as he touches the knife to Cas' hip. "Wanna see those pretty bones."

The flesh peels back under Dean's careful attentions, thin and tight, and Dean was right. He's pretty right down to the bone, even bloodied and pink.

Dean carefully licks the blood away so he can get a good eye on the real color of the thing, and Castiel's breath hitches underneath him. He licks his lips when he looks up, bottom half of his face red, and Cas stares at him with wide, terrified eyes. His pupils are blown and he's bitten right through his lip in terror.

"Shh, babe, it's okay," Dean murmurs, his hand trailing up Cas' chest as he leans in to kiss him. Castiel bites at his tongue and Dean hisses into his mouth, wrapping a hand around his throat and tightening his fingers until Castiel gives it up to him. "Such a pretty neck, too," he says. "Might have to open that up too, look inside it. We'll do that later, though; I still wanna hear you scream for it. "

The taste of blood lingers in Dean's mouth, and he slowly looks back down Castiel's body, savoring the stains he left on it. Slowly, he moves down, and then—

"God, you're fucking filthy," Dean says triumphantly, grabbing Castiel's hair and yanking his head up. "You're getting off on this, look. Your dick's all hard for me. You like it when I use my knives on you; you _like it_  when I show you your insides."

" _No_ ," Castiel spits, deep and guttural, but the proof is a lot further down than his mouth.

"I think," Dean says, hand sliding down to wrap around Castiel's cock, " _yes_."

Cas' reaction is immediate—his whole body arches upwards, wings flinching against their bonds, and Dean's grin goes so wide he feels like his face could split in half. That might be fun. "Stop," he says, but there's no resolve in his voice anymore.

"Fuck," Dean says. He fumbles for his knife, accidentally gouging a cut in Cas' collarbone, but it just makes his dick twitch. "Damn, baby,  _sweetheart_ , fuck, you love it when I hurt you, don't you? Do you want me to slick you up with your own blood and ride you, babe? Would you like that?"

Cas just moans, strangled sounding. Dean carves into his skin and he gets an idea, the knife swerving almost of its own accord as he sends it a little too deep.

"Dean Winchester," he reads when he's done, satisfaction curling low in his stomach to mingle with desire. "Do you like being marked? It's like I own you."

Snarling in Dean's general direction, Castiel turns his head as far away from Dean as he can get it.

"Rude," Dean comments, flicking at Cas' collar again until he gets a good look at the bone. "Do you treat all the boys like this, all the ones who want to sit on your dick? Or is it just me? Am I special, Cas?"

Dean reaches down to touch himself as Cas groans, ashamed. His cheeks are colored with two high, bright spots of red, and Dean appreciates a man with bloody stubble. Makes 'em look like the real deal, like a man who could actually take Dean apart with their hands.

It's funny 'cause Dean's the one who takes  _them_  apart.

The scene shimmers, and suddenly there's a wide table under Castiel's back, something for Dean to brace his feet against as he swings up to straddle Cas' thighs. Cas grunts as Dean's weight settles on him.

"Mm, baby," Dean says, burying his nose in Cas' neck. He smells like fear and sweat, something Dean could lose himself in for hours, but he has goals right now, things to do. "Gonna need some blood from you, get me all opened up." Castiel gasps, tries to cover it up with a cough, and it's bullshit Dean can see straight through. "It's okay to get turned on like this," Dean whispers lecherously.

"Get  _off_  me," Cas snaps.

"Get you off? Can do, old buddy, old pal, but first I wanna see you  _bleed_."

Dean draws his knife down the center of Cas' chest, deep enough to scour against his breastbone. Blood goes everywhere, and Dean slicks up his fingers excitedly as the smell of it claws into his nose. Motherfucker.

He starts with two fingers, hardly bothering to stretch himself as he shoves a third in barely a minute later. Cas' eyes keep flicking over to Dean's hand like he wants to watch but can't rationalize it with himself, but that's alright with Dean. He likes his fucks half-unwilling and half-enthralled, because they're unpredictable that way.

"Alright, sweetheart, let's do this," Dean says gleefully, smearing Cas' cock with blood and holding it under himself. Castiel goes back to struggling almost like he forgot he was supposed to be protesting, but that's what makes it better.

Dean's ass burns as he sinks down, too much, too fast, too little preparation, and it's  _perfect_ , oh, God, is it perfect, even as Cas says, "No, no, no," on repeat as he bucks his hips up into Dean's ass. Dean stabs the knife into Cas' lung to try and shut him up because he's ruining Dean's high, but all that does is make him protest louder. If he'd only just  _scream_.

"You like this, right?" Dean asks, and he laughs when Cas says no. "Liar, liar, pants on fire, babe, don't think I can't see straight through you. God, you should feel the way your dick feels in my ass like this—hurts so good, you don't even know. You really just don't know."

His orgasm creeps up on him entirely too fast, in Dean's opinion, and he puts his hands back on Cas' neck, using it for leverage to fuck himself on Castiel's dick. He clenches his ass in time with his thrusts, and soon Castiel is coming inside him, a hot, wet rush that leaves Dean lightheaded.

He jerks his own cock until he comes, all over Castiel's chest as his come mixes with blood.

"Taste this, 's so good," Dean says breathlessly, pressing some of it into Castiel's mouth. Cas' face is blissed out, half-asleep, and he licks lazily at Dean's fingers for a moment before he comes back to himself and snaps with his teeth.

Laughing, Dean pulls back, says, "Baby, you can't lie to me like you can lie to yourself.

\---

Dean wakes up to sticky sheets and a bucket of denial so large he thinks he might actually drown in it.

\---

Three weeks, three hunts, and Dean is feeling normal and productive, almost like that night never happened. He's ignoring a lot of things about that general time, honestly, but it's almost easy to think it was all just some strange, strange hallucination that happened without Sam at his side. Sam keeps him sane, keeps him human, and it makes sense that Dean would lose that innate sense without him. Nothing to worry about, absolutely nothing at all.

Cas doesn't call and Dean doesn't care. He's too busy ganking some real monsters, the kind he's supposed to be after, and Castiel is off searching for God. It's all well and ordinary, perfectly in tune with Dean's usual M.O.

He doesn't dream about the feeling of Castiel's hipbones under his tongue again, but he hasn't gone to sleep sober in a while, either.


	11. Everybody Wants Somebody

"No thanks, guys, I'm good for the night," Dean says, an easy grin on his face as he ducks away from the pool table. Castiel watches him tuck the money into his wallet.

"No, man, come on! Two hundred, on the table, let's go," a man cries, tossing his money down. Dean has a knack for finding the desperate ones, the ones with everything in the world to prove.

Castiel watches as Dean ducks his head in farewell, sidling away to the bar and signaling the bartender.

"That man was very willing to give you his money," Castiel says as he walks up behind Dean.

"Yeah, well, I don't need it," Dean says, nodding toward the seat next to him in invitation. Castiel sits as Dean waves the bartender away again. "Me 'n Sam are set for the next two weeks if everything goes well."

Dean sips at his drink, staring blankly into the air as Castiel watches him. He's come a long way from the irritating, drunken human who started pulling out guns the minute Castiel so much as looked at him for too long, and now he's so used to Castiel's gaze he doesn't even notice it anymore.

The idea makes Castiel's mind trip over a strange emotion. He ignores it every time it swells up, buoyant and complete, because it is always crushed under Dean's words.

"How's the search going?" Dean asks, and Castiel takes a moment to right his thoughts before he can answer.

"I have found nothing," he says stiffly. "No divine symbols, no unexplainable power." Castiel pauses, thinks it over. "I have an infinite number of places still to look."

"Mm," Dean says noncommittally. Castiel thinks he's trying to say something without actually saying it, but he's tired of humans and their stupid words that don't say what they're really thinking. "No luck, then?"

Castiel doesn't even bother to answer that, just blinks owlishly back at Dean.

"Dumb question, I guess," Dean says, turning back to his drink.

"Yes," Castiel says.

Dean rolls his eyes, but he doesn't call Castiel out on his obvious rudeness. Normally, Castiel wouldn't be acting that way, but he's harboring a grudge the Winchester way and using epically proportioned amounts of Winchester style denial to ignore the night he has a grudge over. Dean is never allowed to say Castiel hasn't learned things about humanity while being on Earth.

It's a little petulant and childish, but. He has his reasons.

"Why are you here then?" Dean asks quietly.

"I shouldn't be," Castiel says. "I should be out in the world, searching for my Father who doesn't want to be found."

"Well, yeah," Dean says. He's on his third glass of alcohol—some drink Castiel doesn't know for certain he knows the name of—now but it doesn't seem to be affecting him yet.

When Castiel doesn't bother to elaborate further, Dean rolls his eyes and says, "You can tell me to fuck off, Cas, but I'm going to need more signals here."

"I don't know why I'm here," Castiel snaps fiercely, and he barely refrains from snapping at Dean with his teeth. "You are insignificant in the grand story; you are naught compared to what God could be for us, and I'm sitting here with you instead of Him. You are  _nothing_ , Dean."

Castiel doesn't know where this unexplainable fury is welling up inside him from. His wings are flaring out behind his back, and he tamps down on the urge to burst the light bulbs into sparks and make his wings show in the shadows of this bar.

"Then if I'm so tiny compared to the rest of you," Dean says, scowling and hunching over his drink, "maybe you should just get the hell out of here."

Castiel meets his eyes once, sees the anger flashing in Dean's mind, and he flies away, back to the top of a mountain where the sun has already set this time.

He is so tired of the way Dean shoves him around, pulling him in with warm words and heated looks, and then shoving him away the second it turns perfect. Castiel wants to understand what's going on in his mind, why Dean sometimes can't stand to look at him. Why he leans into Castiel's chest and kisses him as if it means something more than a mistake that shouldn't have happened.

Castiel isn't completely confused—he knows that friends don't casually sleep together like he and Dean did. He's been around to see enough that he knows human males don't just offer themselves up to sleep with their male friends. Castiel may not be male himself, but his vessel is, and Dean couldn't possibly have missed that part, considering what they did.

Dean was so warm when they woke up, his body shaking with nightmares and curving in against Castiel's as if he felt safe there. Castiel had wanted to give him a kiss for every demon he saw in his dreams, for every monster he became in his head, and then Dean shoved him away.

And Castiel had thought—he had thought it meant something. The sex. The connection, because he also fucking knows that humans don't feel their souls touching when they lay together; even at their most vulnerable, they cannot see the deepest parts of each other. Castiel felt that from Dean, and he showed Dean his own depths. And it still was nothing to him.  _Don't worry about last night_ , he said. And then he said,  _Doesn't have to mean anything_ , like he wanted to add insult to Castiel's injury.

He sinks into a crouch, shoes scuffing up the dirt as his wings droop around him. Castiel shakes them out, feeling ashamed of the bent, broken feathers sticking out in complete disorder. It's the first time he's ever felt that way about himself, like he isn't good enough, and he knows it's Dean's fault for leaving him to feel like he's not good enough for Dean.

Dammit, he is above this. Castiel is an Angel of the Lord, the young, awkward one with too much love for humanity after he almost accidentally killed the fish crawling out of the ocean that headlined all of God's plans. Always the one with the un-kept wings and the shining desire to grow up to be the best soldier for his Father he ever could be.

Castiel wants to go back to that time and stab himself in the throat.

Everything is wrong in the world. His Father is gone and his brothers are at war with each other, and no one wants to follow their Father's last orders an simply love humanity for all its flaws. Worst of all, Castiel is certain Dean Winchester hates him.

* * *

He puts Dean out of his mind after that. He refuses to think about Dean's body under his hands or his cries muffled by Castiel's mouth, and he spends his time searching for God.

God is still nowhere to be found.

His phone rings one day, shrill and mechanical in the untouched forest he walks in. The phone doesn't recognize the number, but he only has Sam and Dean programmed in, so he's not surprised.

"Hello?" he says.

"Cas? That you? It's Bobby."

"What do you need, Bobby?" Castiel asks in confusion. He and Bobby don't talk except for the one phone call that feels like it happened years ago.

"Have you heard from the boys lately?" Bobby says. He sounds worried.

Castiel says, "No."

"Balls," Bobby swears, and something clatters to the ground noisily on his end of the line. "They haven't answered their phones in three days, neither of 'em."

"Where were they?" Castiel demands sharply, ready to fly.

"Wellington, Ohio, Motel 6. They were huntin' somethin', maybe a Trickster," Bobby says. "Hurry, boy."

He hangs up on Castiel, most likely to send out a call to more hunters and see if any of them are in the area. He worries about Sam and Dean more than their real father ever really did. John cared for them of course, but Castiel knows he was more like the angels' absent, distant Father than the kind of parent Bobby is.

Now to dig the Winchester's out of more trouble. Castiel just hopes they haven't died again this time; that would be cumbersome to deal with.

* * *

Of course. Gabriel, of course, naturally. What else could it have been? A real trickster?

Castiel wants to  _scream_. Unfortunately, he might accidentally make Dean's head explode if he did that, regardless of how therapeutic it would be.

After all this time, after  _all these goddamn years_ , Gabriel waltzes in and greets Castiel as if they haven't been apart for more than a day. And sending him into that  _place_ —he doesn't even want to think about it.  _Of course_  Gabriel wouldn't waste more than a half a second to get rid of Castiel; he ran away, he doesn't want to see him.

They were brothers-in-arms, not excessively codependent Winchesters, for Heaven's sake, and Castiel's being obnoxious and contrary right now. Because he has to wonder if maybe there's something wrong with his garrison. First Gabriel—he gave up thousands of years ago and disappeared without a trace, only to turn up again dressed up as a monster and bitter about the family he abandoned. Anna fell just because she wanted to become human. Uriel, of course, murdered too many of his brothers in the interest of raising Lucifer and destroying the humans.

And there's Castiel himself, who renounced Heaven to defy his Father and partner up with the Righteous Man and his despicable younger brother. Castiel is the one searching for his absent Father; he doesn't think anyone before him has ever bothered to look. Something in Castiel just can't believe He would want to destroy His greatest creation.

Now Gabriel's back. He's alive and well, and Castiel almost can't bear the thought of losing him again. He wants to dance almost as much as he wants to cry and scream. None of them is good enough; they are all broken. Castiel wonders if this is what Lucifer felt like, before he fell, as if every one of his brothers was out to get him and he had nothing left to hope for. Because Castiel understands falling for that.

There is nothing he wants to understand about this.

Castiel returns to his mountaintop. He likes it up here, far better than he tends to like it down there, and there's space to think. The sun still hangs in the sky, too early for a sunset, but that's alright.

The sound of wings jerks him out of his reverie, and before Castiel knows it, Gabriel is sweeping him up in his arms and saying, "Cas, god, fuck, I've missed you, little bro."

Castiel freezes for a minute before he shoves Gabriel away.

"Don't play your games with me," he warns, stalking away to the other side of the outcropping. "What do you want?"

Gabriel shrugs. "Thought we should catch up. It's been, what, about four thousand years?"

"Six thousand seventy-two," Castiel snarls. He feels so angry all the time lately. "You were gone for six thousand seventy-two years and one hundred fifty-seven days, Gabriel, not  _about four thousand_."

"I can see someone's finally taught you how to not act like a prissy bitch all the time, then," Gabriel says, arching his eyebrow in an unimpressed way. "Who brought it out? Winchester?"

Castiel's silence betrays him.

"Thought so," Gabriel says, rolling his eyes. "Dude's kind of a dick, Cas."

"You're not much better," Castiel says evenly, turning to face Gabriel. His vessel is so small, close to bursting over the size of Gabriel's true form, but he fits. Barely. Castiel can still see the outline of his wings and halo, impossible to miss now that he knows what to look for. Archangels have a hard time hiding their true selves because they're so powerful.

"Words hurt, Cassy," Gabriel replies breezily.

"Don't  _call_  me that," Castiel snaps, heart pounding all of a sudden. "It's Castiel or Cas; not Cassy."

Gabriel blinks in shock. "You never minded when you were a kid," he says, and Castiel would say he sounds a little hurt. He's pretty convinced Gabriel doesn't care about what Castiel thinks anymore, though.

"I'm hardly a child anymore," Castiel says, despite the fact that he has, in fact, been called Cassy his entire life up until about a year and a half ago.

"Yeah, you're all grown up now," Gabriel says softly. "I remember when you were created, you know."

Castiel swallows and looks at the ground. "I remember too," he says when he can look up again. "That was a long time ago."

Gabriel snorts in a completely undignified way. "Feels like it was just yesterday," he admits. "And that time you almost screwed over God with the fish—" Castiel scowls darkly. He's thought about that enough lately. "Man, you were—you were always fun, then. What happened?" He sounds sad, wishful, and Castiel feels his cheek twitch in irritation.

"I joined a war," he bites out. "And I became a soldier."

Lines appear on Gabriel's face, deep set and sad, and he shakes his head as he looks at Castiel. "Cas," he says, hoarse. "Cas, fuck, that was never supposed to happen. Angels are warriors, not soldiers. Don't you remember when we used to sing for days on end? All of Heaven, praising God together. And the cherubim, we always played the best tricks on them. Like—" Gabriel cuts himself off with a short laugh. "Do you remember the one we did with my horn and Michael's sword? Amariah was never the same again, poor bastard."

Castiel's mouth twitches upwards despite himself. "I do remember," he says lowly. "It was cruel of us to do that."

"Yeah, yeah, you told us not to. Even today, you're a spoilsport," Gabriel taunts him, but his tone is gentle.

"Why did you leave?" Castiel asks. He hates how young he sounds, but Gabriel makes him feel that way again, like time hasn't passed.

"They trained you for a war," Gabriel says. "Michael and Raphael, they trained you for a war, and I didn't want any part in that. They tried to change me—they pulled in the same angels who tried to change you, I believe—but they couldn't hold me down long enough. I escaped. You have to believe me, Cas, I tried to stop them. Angels aren't meant to be so joyless. Even you, you're...darker, lesser; you don't care as much as you used to."

Castiel bows his head. "We're warriors," he says helplessly. "We are meant to be this way during war."

Gabriel shakes his head. "They had no right," he says. "They had no right to take away your music, your pranks, hell—Cas, I know they took some of your memories." Castiel's head snaps up.

"Memories?" he says.

Gabriel's face twists in a dark smile. "You would have no memory of it," he says. "But I was there. Don't worry; they didn't take anything too important. Just the stuff that didn't—work. Like close to the beginning of time, when we walked with the humans and were friends with them, that was taken out because it wasn't going to fit in with your identity as warriors. They've been planning this Apocalypse for six thousand years, Castiel. Nothing will get in their way."

"How can I get them back?" Castiel asks, frowning as he tries to work out what he might have forgotten. There's nothing, though, no holes or seams to show him where he should have something else there.

"They were destroyed. I wouldn't worry about it," Gabriel says. "I told you, it was nothing significant."

Castiel feels like he's lost something anyway.

"What about that Winchester guy?" Gabriel says, his usual lack of subtlety in changing the subject glaring with full force. "You like him a lot."

He has to look away. "He's a friend," Castiel says, stiff and unsure.

"That totally explains the way you keep staring at him like he's the guy who hung the moon," Gabriel says, and Castiel frowns at him because they both know no one hung the moon.

"The moon is a satellite of Earth, it's not—" Castiel starts, but Gabriel just snaps his fingers and sound stops coming out of Castiel's mouth.

"Not the point," Gabriel says. "The point is that you're in love with a human, and even I've been paying enough attention to the angel side of things to know that everyone knows it. Dean Winchester? Really?"

Castiel closes his mouth with a snap.

"Sam Winchester, I could understand. I get that he's totally into demon blood and that's unattractive or whatever," Gabriel says, making a face, "but Dean is a dick. And I don't think he likes dick, either, so you need to jump vessels if you want to get into his pants."

Castiel purses his lips. "For the record," he says, "I've already gotten into his pants." The phrase feels distasteful on his tongue. "And I don't appreciate you speaking about him that way; he is the Righteous Man."

"He's the Righteous Asshole," Gabriel counters, but he backs down. "Just...you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Gabriel, I have no idea what I'm doing," he says bluntly, staring his brother in the eye.

Gabriel chuckles. "Well, Cas," he says. "I'll try not to stay away for six thousand years this time, okay? Maybe just three or four."

"Not funny," Castiel says, pushing Gabriel back from where he's advancing for a hug.

"I'm hilarious," Gabriel says, and Castiel watches as his mask slides on. It means he's not Castiel's brother anymore; he's a trickster, plain and simple, and Castiel watches as he pulls a piece of candy out of his pocket and pops it in his mouth. "I'll see you around."

He disappears.

\---

Dean takes Castiel for a drive when he shows up several days later, claiming he needs to get away from Sam, just for a little while as they work out some boundary issues. Castiel has no idea what he's talking about, but that's hardly the point of going for a drive, according to Dean. The point is not to have a point.

Also, Castiel despises oxymora.

They park in the middle of the woods down a long, deserted dirt road because Dean claimed it looked like a good place to turn onto at the time. Dean snaps at the dirt, as if it's the road's fault he's driving down it and getting his car all dirty. Castiel rolls his eyes affectionately at him, and when they stop, he waves his hand to clean the dirt and dust away. It's tiring after long days of searching for God and using more grace than he really should, but Dean smiles softly at him.

"I haven't heard from you since we ran into Gabriel," Dean says, bumping his shoulder against Castiel's. They are leaning against the hood of the Impala, Dean with a beer in his hand and Castiel with his hands in his pockets. "How've you been?"

"My older brother came back to life after I spent six thousand years thinking he was dead," Castiel says without inflection. He doesn't mean it to sound callous, but Dean flinches anyway.

"I'm sorry, Cas," he says sympathetically.

"I'm happy he's not dead," Castiel admits, staring up at the stars through the trees. "But I don't understand why he stayed away for so long."

"He didn't tell you?" Dean asks, brow furrowing. Castiel sighs and shakes his head.

"Gabriel tried to explain, but I didn't understand it," he says. He feels stupid, being unable to understand something as simple as Gabriel leaving Heaven is, but he can't wrap his brain around the idea that Gabriel would willingly abandon them all.

Dean doesn't say anything, but he scoots over so his side is pressed all up along Castiel's, from knee to thigh to hip to shoulder. He's warm and silent, and Castiel allows himself just a few moments to lean into the feeling.

"I grew up with him," Castiel says eventually. "We were very close, a long time ago."

Save for the rustle of his jacket, Dean is entirely quiet, wrapping an arm around Castiel's shoulders and drawing him in. Castiel closes his eyes, breathes in, and lets himself pretend. He imagines this isn't just Dean, but it's a Dean who loves him, who is pulling him close because they are in love. Because Castiel just wants to have given up Heaven for something that turns out to be more than worth it.

Dean smells like leather and grease from where he was working on his car earlier, playing around with the engine because he thought he heard a funny noise coming from her. He welcomes Castiel to lean against him and Castiel wants to kiss him.

That might be overstepping the fragile boundaries Dean has drawn between them, but he doesn't care.

Castiel pushes himself off the car, legs shaking as Dean's arm falls back to his side.

"Cas?" he asks, setting his beer down on the ground. "What's wrong?"

Turning around, Castiel nudges Dean's knee with his own, spreading his thighs apart on the Impala's hood until there is room for Castiel to stand between them, leaning over Dean and staring into his eyes. Dean watches him guardedly, his walls up in front of his emotions. Castiel wants to wreck him, tear down those walls, and turn him into nothing but a mess.

So he does.

He kisses Dean, hard and unforgiving, whispering against his lips, "I wish I could make you see."

Dean doesn't see, though, not even as his arms come up to wrap around Castiel's neck to draw him down into a more comfortable range for Dean's neck. Castiel contemplates pulling them back to the way he had it as he nibbles at Dean's lip, but he isn't here to be cruel, not even as he purposefully holds his hips back as Dean tries to rock into them. He's not interested in this as long as it's going to be quick and fast.

Arousal builds slowly in the pit of his stomach until Castiel's body is thrumming under Dean's hands. He sucks bruises into Dean's collarbone and kisses his lips swollen, pulling Dean closer to him, settling into the curve of his legs. Dean moans and pants against him, moving slowly now that he understands.

Castiel doesn't know why Dean can tell him no, can tell him this kind of thing shouldn't happen, and still turn into this gorgeous, willing man when Castiel puts his hands on him. It feels right to be here, as if Castiel belongs right here with Dean, and still there is an axe hanging over his head.

"Cas," Dean groans, his fingers tangling in Castiel's hair and pressing him further into Dean's throat. "Back seat, come on. Get off, we gotta—"

Sighing, Castiel opens his wings. Dean blinks in shock as he's suddenly beneath Castiel in the car, and one of these days, Castiel thinks he might actually remember that Castiel can fly.

"Or you could do that," Dean says, and Castiel ignores him in favor of pulling him up by the front of his shirt.

Castiel almost thinks he spends eternity over Dean, pulling their clothes out of the way and tossing them in the front seat until there is nothing but skin and leather around him.

They move together, and Dean descends slowly into incoherency until all he can say are wordless groans and helpless gasps of breath. Castiel takes him to the edge twice, leaves him there, and strokes his hands over his face until Dean comes back to him, cursing breathlessly and panting before he comes.

Dean relaxes into the seat when Castiel collapses on top of him, pulling out, sticky and wet. He kisses Dean carefully, one last time, and whispers, "Good night, Dean."

Castiel flies away before Dean can open his mouth and destroy the happiness bubbling up inside him. He wants just one happy memory of this.


	12. Demons

Dean hasn't been in this particular place in a long time, not in years. It would feel nostalgic if Jo wasn't there, eyes demon black and fingernails long and rough like all the other demons down here. Her hair is matted with blood and god knows what else, and every time her teeth flash, they're dirty and cracked. She hardly looks like Jo anymore, but Dean knows it's her.

Her hounds are there, too; she tells Dean she found the one that spilled her insides and made it the leader of the pack. She claims it's ironic and that every torturer has a pack of hellhounds, so why shouldn't she pick the best ones?

"But you know all about how that works, don't you?" she asks, leaning on his throat with her elbow. "You almost had a puppy all for your own when you were down here. You even had a name all picked out for him—Nuronit. Cute."

"You're not Jo," Dean says, spitting blood out of his mouth. He might have said that part already, but Dean's hazy on the past right now. His face feels raw where she's peeled away the upper layers of skin and his toes are slowly melting away under the acid.

The demon sighs and pats his cheek with too much force to be considered friendly. "Of course I'm Jo. Just the same as Castiel is Castiel. He said you kept denying him, too. We're your friends, Dean; it hurts when you say shit like that."

"You're  _not_  my—" Dean snarls, but Jo pulls her knife on him and slices clean through his cheek.

"Here's the deal, fucker," she snarls, all up in his ear and claws digging into his chest. "I died 'cause of you, Dean. You like to think you're this great savior, but all you do is kill people. Those monsters? They have lives. Some of them have families. They're all real—live—creatures, and you." Her mouth twists and her eyes flash. "You kill them."

"They're  _monsters_ ," he snarls best he can, jerking up against his bindings. It hurts—holy  _hell_ , does it hurt—but he can't think straight right now.

"You get to be the judge of that, then?" she says, twisting her knife in his fucking stomach. "Dean Winchester, our new god, and he pulls the strings; he decides if we all live or die." Jo laughs, digs her thumb into his eye, and hisses into his ear, "You have the world on your shoulders, Dean, and you don't even know what you want to do with it."

She pulls back and Dean shuts his eyes. That's the key, isn't it? Say yes to Michael and he doesn't have to deal with this anymore. He becomes something that is not Dean Winchester, and this body that is not Dean Winchester deals with Sam, Cas, and the Apocalypse, and the broken man shoved to the side doesn't have to worry anymore.

The end of the world has never sounded so fantastic.

"You always give in," Jo says, low and loud. She pulls at his fingers, snapping them in time with the sick song playing in Dean's head, and slowly grinding the bones beneath his skin into pieces. "You  _always_ give in. You are weak. You break everything around you, Dean, and you will break the world too."

Dean heaves in a breath, choking on the blood welling in his mouth and throat. She's inside his skull, inside his mind, digging into the parts he  _doesn't fucking talk about_ , the words he  _never fucking says out loud_ , but now Jo knows how shattered he is.

"The man that carried the world on his shoulders. So he lost his  _feet._ " Jo heaves an axe over her head, a heavy, brutal metal thing, and it falls above his ankle. Screaming, Dean barely feels the second one be cut off, but it's not as if he needs to be reminded of what the pain feels like.

"The boy who held his dying baby brother in his arms, and he lost his hands." She pulls out a crude box cutter and slices tenderly through the veins and flesh in his skin. It's nothing, not until she shatters his wrists with a sledgehammer and says, "The human who fell in love with an angel. So he lost his heart."

Jo digs his fingers into his chest. Dean wants to scream that she can't get to him that way, there are bones and skin and little tiny arteries that keep her out, but this is Hell. She can do whatever she wants to him.

His chest goes concave under the pressure of her hand, things snapping and breaking where they  _should not be snapping and breaking¸_ but that doesn't seem to matter to Jo as she laughs, putrid breath clogging where he's already struggling to breathe. Her hand is cold when it wraps around his heart, squeezing in a painful, aching way. Things aren't supposed to touch the insides of him; Dean can't describe the feeling of what it's like. It just  _hurts_  in a way so many things don't anymore, and Jo rips it out, holding it still beating in her palm.

"So fucking pretty," she whispers, holding it up to the low light shining down upon them. It glistens, wet and throbbing with blood and life.

Jo hooks a thumb in his lower jaw, pulling it open wide for her. The heart moves closer and closer to his mouth, and Dean screams so hard in the interim he wakes himself up on Earth.

Dean bolts upward in bed, slapping a hand to his chest as he licks the faint, stale taste of blood out of his mouth. His ribs are whole; his wrists are sinew and bone; his feet are tangled up in an epic mass of covers and Sam isn't in the room.

Cas is.

"Dean?" Cas says, laying a hand carefully on Dean's shoulder. Dean flinches—it's too close to his mark too soon after Jo, and Cas immediately backs off.

"Sorry," Dean says, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. He feels raw. "Nightmare."

"I didn't know you were still having them," Castiel says, tone slightly off.

"They never stopped," Dean tells him. "You seen Sam?"

"He left twenty-three minutes ago," Castiel says. "He appeared upset when he left, but he didn't take your car."

"Good." Dean stares at his lap and tries to convince himself to go back to sleep, but he can't do it with the threat of nightmares hanging in the air and Sam wandering around on his own. It's too much.

"What did you see?" Castiel asks suddenly. Dean looks up at him sharply, but Cas' face is nothing but curious and sad.

"Just...Hell," he says. "I was on the rack and Jo was there." Dean shakes his head and he doesn't say the things he heard because those words all came from his own head, not from Jo's mouth.

Dean breaks things. That's just how it is.

"I am not human," Castiel says, and Dean almost snaps at him before he continues. "And I have never had a dream. But I believe I would be having them now if I could.

"What do you dream about, Cas?" Dean asks, fist clenching in the sheets.

"Heaven," he answers.

Dean watches his expression flick from neutral to conflicted and back to neutral in the space of a moment, and he lies back down without even considering it further. "Lay down," Dean says, sliding all the way to one side so Cas can take the other. Cas' eyes glint in the faint moonlight coming in through the window, lighting him up just enough to make his eyes as deep as they look in Dean's dreams. Dean's fingers brush Castiel's, and Cas turns his palm up for Dean to trace across it.

"Heaven has a very archaic method of keeping angels on their side," Castiel says slowly. "It's painful for the angels that get caught up in questions of faith. I imagine it's very much like what you experienced in Hell."

Closing his eyes, Dean turns his face slightly into his pillow and breathes out hard. Cas never would have been there if not for him and that's...that's hard to hear.

"Are you alright?" he asks, even though it's a stupid question.

"I have scars," Castiel says. "They're much like the ones on your soul; you know how it feels."

Dean swallows. The darkness is pressing down on him, and he has to pull his hand away from Cas to get breath back into his lungs. He thinks to himself, there's nothing glamorous about wanting to dig his nails into the back of his hand and tear the skin away to study the bones in his own broken hand, but maybe that's the sort of shine his soul has now, stuck in nightmares forever.

"Dean, you're not doing this alone," Castiel says, forever leaning further into Dean's space. "You've never been alone, not truly."

"How the hell do you—" Dean says, and he cuts himself off before he can do something stupid like get choked up. "How do you always know what I'm thinking, Cas? Are you—fuck, are you readin' my mind again?"

"I find you easy to read, Dean," Castiel says. His hand brushes against Dean's forearm, and Dean can't back away anymore without falling off the bed. "It's difficult to hide from the one who sewed your body back together when he raised you from the pit."

"Just wish that was a two-way street," Dean says.

"It can be," Castiel says. Before Dean can demand to know how that's even possible, Castiel slides his hand the rest of the way up Dean's arm, under the sleeve of his T-shirt, and slots it into place above his mark.

Dean gasps, arching helplessly under the shock that surges through him, unrelenting and dangerous, and it's like Castiel is there inside his soul, humming just under his skin. He whimpers into the air, caught up in the rush of everything Castiel is feeling right now, and he doesn't know if this is safe for an angel. It's too much for Dean, and he's lived with emotion his entire life.

For Castiel, it has to be beyond a hurricane—this has to feel like an electrical storm contained within a volcano for him. Something bigger, grander, lovelier than complete annihilation, because that's what he's doing to Dean. Destroying him, wrecking him,  _using_ him, and Dean is so glad for it.

He doesn't realize they're kissing until Castiel's grip relaxes and Dean finds himself stuck panting into Cas' mouth, his lip bitten into blood from the force of someone's teeth. Dean's hands shake as he tangles them in Castiel's hair and tears slide sideways across his face to drip onto the sheets. It's too much, perfectly so.

Dean shoves at Castiel's trench coat, tugging at his shirttails, desperate to ground himself on skin and warmth, and Castiel's hand slips from his mark as Dean pulls his coats off.

He doesn't fucking know what he wants anymore. This thing here is going to be Dean's downfall; he can feel the warning of it thrumming right underneath the want and arousal. Even more than that, though, he wants to feel the rough scrape of Cas' stubble against his cheek and the feeling of him moving inside Dean, raw and real. God, it's Heaven, it's  _got_  to be, as Castiel sucks a bruise into Dean's skin just under his ear and kicks off his shoes at the foot of the bed.

Sam could be back any minute, he really could, but Dean doesn't care. He shoves Cas' shirt off his shoulders instead, dragging his nails down his chest and kissing him desperately. Dean burns and the feeling consumes him.

Castiel drags Dean's clothes off with the same ferocity he displays in his grip on Dean's hips, and the moment they're naked together under the covers Dean tries to glue himself to Cas' body. He can't get close enough, can't move fast enough, and the feeling of that damn soul thing is still buzzing under his skin.

"Dean," Cas says. His voice is lower than normal, reaching deep, and Dean moans in response.

He's thankful for angels when Castiel doesn't bother to get up and dig through Dean's bag for lube—he pulls it out of thin air, pops the cap, and Dean doesn't have to let him go before a finger starts prodding at his entrance.

Cas is so, so gentle, even though Dean can see him biting his lip to keep himself in check, and Dean wonders for a second what it would be like if Castiel ever lost control with him like this. He'd shove Dean up against a wall, bend him over whatever he wanted, and— _fuck_. Dean moans into the air, probably louder than is warranted by two fingers pushing into him, because he can just  _taste_ blood in their mouths and feel the strain of Castiel twisting Dean's arm up higher than it's supposed to go.

He doesn't realize he's making any noise until Cas shoves two fingers in his mouth and says, "Quiet, Dean."

It's a good thing he can't make much noise this way, because the fact that Cas is holding him down, keeping him quiet,  _telling Dean what to do_ —

Castiel draws his fingers out one by one, and Dean listens to the slide of each, already begging Cas with his eyes to hurry up. Dean's frantic, his mind surging forward as his hips rise to meet Castiel's, and it feels  _so good_  to be full like this again.

"Dean," Castiel whispers, pulling his fingers from Dean's mouth and falling still above him. "Dean, it's alright."

Dean notices then that there are still tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, so he squeezes them shut and digs a heel into Castiel's back, gasping, "Move."

And when Castiel does, leaning down hesitantly to press his lips against Dean's forehead, his cheeks, his chin, Dean scrambles to lock his arms around Cas' neck and hold him there. Castiel fucks him slow and hard, not gentle with his hands or hips. He forces Dean to arch his neck with a hand in his hair, biting kisses along Dean's throat.

It's the perfect side of rough, reducing Dean down into a helpless mass of writhing against Castiel. His orgasm doesn't surprise him—it grows in him forever, from his chest and his toes, buzzing through his stomach and stopping up his ears.

Castiel moans his name, long and deep, and Dean comes between them, blood rushing through his head.

"Fuck," he gasps, shuddering again as Castiel freezes above him and comes with a wordless groan. Cas collapses just to the side, his hands rolling Dean with him as he noses into Dean's hair.

Their breathing is loud in the dark. Dean feels something heavy settle on him, tickling his skin because it's strangely light at the same time. It feels like feathers, and Dean swallows and lets the security seep in.

"Cas—" Dean says, voice hoarse, but Castiel shushes him and pulls him closer.

"I'll make sure Sam doesn't know," he says, and Dean eventually drops back off into sleep.

\---

It's just him and Sam in the motel room, Dean watching TV while Sam does something on his computer. They're already three states over from that mental hospital and Dean is doing his best to bury the whole thing, but it's not working. Sam keeps making these little frustrated huffs, muttering to himself about something Dean can't quite make out, and he figures they both have their own ways of dealing.

Dean rolls off his bed and heads out the door without saying anything. He can't stay in there—breathing the same air as Sam right now feels toxic, like there's too much tension between them, and he doesn't know why. So Sam's  _angry_ ; so he's angry  _a lot_. Dean just...Dean's angry too. Mostly he's empty, but there's anger in him too, and Sam doesn't have a right to go around with his  _anger_  and pretend like everyone else in the world is okay and he's the only one who's broken.

Fuck.

He finds himself pulling out his phone, texting Castiel their address. He doesn't say anything like "Please come" or "need you," but he hopes the message is implied.

Leaning against the Impala, Dean turns his head up to the sky. The stars are bright and the moon is almost nothing in the crisp, clear night, and Dean should have grabbed a jacket. As it is, he pulls his shirtsleeves all the way down until they cover his wrists and he hopes that—

"Dean."

Dean lets himself grin, just a little bit, and he turns to Cas and says, "Hey, Cas. How's it going?"

Instead of answering, Castiel tilts his head and says, "What happened?"

"Uh, little run in with a wraith. Nothing to worry about—Sammy and I got it." Dean shrugs and crosses his feet at the ankles. "How's God?"

"Missing," Cas says dryly, walking up to Dean and leaning against the car with him.

Dean nods, mostly to himself, and he says, "Sam's angry."

"I would find it strange if he wasn't," Castiel says, and Dean snorts at him. So Cas is in the mood for sarcasm tonight.

"He's...he's angry like me, like I was in Hell," Dean says. "And it's getting to him."

"Then what are you going to do?" Castiel says, looking Dean in the eyes. "You both have proven that you cannot control your brother Dean, no matter how much you wish you were able."

"I just wish I could stop all this," Dean says. "Make it go away so we don't have angels breathing down our necks all the time, waiting for us to slip up. It's hard for Sam—it's not just an archangel that wants him, it's the  _devil_ , Cas. And he..." Dean shakes his head helplessly and rubs a hand through his hair. "He just started believing he could be good again after the demon blood, but now he's angry. Anger fucks you up, man."

"We're working to stop it," Castiel promises, and Dean nods. "As soon as I can find God, He will end it."

"Fuck, I hope it's not too late," Dean whispers.

Castiel catches his eye, gaze boring into Dean like there's nothing else more interesting in the entire universe, and Dean lets himself pretend that's true. He imagines this isn't an angel, that this is a man and a hunter, someone who understands what he's going through, and Dean surprises himself with the intensity at which he wants to lean in and press their lips together.

Dean isn't gay, but Cas isn't technically male. He's just...Cas, wrapped up in Jimmy Novak's packaging. It's still more than anything Dean has ever wanted in his life—he's always been resigned to the idea that he will die young, alone, and angry, but now Cas is here, and Dean can't see that life for himself anymore. Because whatever happens, Dean doesn't see Castiel anywhere but with him.

He doesn't know if Cas thinks about the future like that, as something he might have Dean in. Cas is just as likely to die as any of them, but he doesn't appear like that matters to him. Not like it does Dean, with the promise of Hell lurking in his future because the angels will never want him in Heaven after everything he's done to them.

Young, angry, and with an angel at his side, then. Because in his head, Sam's already gone, back to either his normal life or the afterlife. Sam's  _always_  gone.

 

\---

"Why the hell not, Cas?" Dean says, throwing shit into his bag. "She called me; she needs us to meet her. We can't just tell her no."

"You don't understand what she's been through," Cas tells him, voice tinny over the phone. "She didn't  _break out_ of Heaven; only one angel's ever gotten out of there, and he was an archangel, Dean. Anna is on Heaven's side. You can't save her."

"You made it," Dean snaps, signaling Sam to dump his stuff in the car. "And she made it, too."

"I had incentive," Castiel says.

" _Incentive_ ," Dean repeats. "And she didn't?"

"No," Castiel says.

Dean stops and throws his free hand in the air. "What the hell, man? You can't just say that and not explain anything."

"I didn't think I still needed to ask you to trust me," Cas says. Dean pictures the lines forming between his eyebrows and the way his eyes turn to ice, freezing up and refusing to listen to Dean.

"I'm just asking you to throw me a bone," Dean says, sitting on the bed. Sam comes in and gestures wildly at him, mouthing,  _What the hell, dude?_  Dean holds up a finger and says, "I'll take anything, Cas."

Cas is silent for a moment. "Heaven is not unlike Hell. They break angels who don't follow orders and then they put them to work." Dean's head droops, staring at the stained carpet between his feet. "Anna spent months there, Dean. It's nothing short of God's work if she can still make her own choices."

"We have to send someone," Dean says.

"Give me the address," Castiel says. "I'll go to her."

Dean doesn't feel any better about this, sending Cas in instead, because if Anna is really as twisted up inside as Cas claims she is, she's dangerous. The last thing he needs is for Cas to bite the bullet for him again.

"Call us as soon as you know," Dean says gruffly after he gives Castiel the address.

"Of course."

Dean hangs up and looks at Sam.

"We're not leaving," he says. "Cas says it's too dangerous; she's been warped in Heaven."

"Since when do you listen to Cas?" Sam asks bitchily, stomping over to the bed.

"Since he can get there faster than us, anyway," Dean says, rolling his eyes. "Calm down, Sam, he'll let us know if we still need to go out there. It's just better this way."

Sam sighs and rolls his head up to the ceiling. "I just don't think we should let him go alone, is all," he says apologetically.

"Well," Dean says, staring off into the air as he nods, "I don't think we can stop him."

Snorting, Sam says, "Amen to that."

\---

Cas looks wrecked when he wakes up; angels aren't supposed to sleep or pass out or whatever the hell just happened to him, and the first thing he does after his eyes open is lurch to his feet and promptly hit the ground again with his face.

Sam's closer than Dean, and he jumps up and hauls Castiel back up to the bed. "What the hell," he says as Dean scrambles over.

"Cas? You okay, dude?" Dean says, shouldering Sam out of the way.

Castiel squints at him. His eyes are puffy and bloodshot and his hair is a complete mess. He looks more like a half-dead human than anything else, and his creased trench coat gives him the look of a homeless man rather than an Angel of the Lord.

"I would like to stand up," he says thickly, as if it's hard to work his tongue.

"Yeah, okay," Sam says, and they help brace Cas as he climbs to his feet. He sways a little bit and Dean keeps a tight hold on his arm.

"Jesus, are you sure you shouldn't just lie down?" Dean says as Cas drags his head up and fixes his gaze blearily on the door. Cas doesn't answer, just sways some more and mumbles incoherently under his breath as blood drips from his nose onto the carpet.

"We should lay him back down," Sam says, and Dean barely refrains from snapping at him because, yeah, duh.

When Cas is lying on the bed, Dean says, "You should go get food. I'll wait with him"

Sam grunts in agreement and throws his coat on. When he's gone, Dean flops onto the side of the bed Castiel isn't taking up, head in his hands. He's so hungry; they haven't eaten all day and he and Sam were just talking about running down to the nearest diner when Cas woke up. The whole day has been full of research on angels overreaching with their power and going unconscious.

There's nothing to be found, as far as Dean's concerned. Angels aren't supposed to be able to pass out. But that's Team Free Will for you—they're not playing by the rules anymore.

Dean snorts to himself, and Cas turns his head to look at him. "What?" he asks. His lips are dry and cracking, and Dean just sighs.

"We never had a chance," Dean says. "We never had a chance to change any of this."

"No," Castiel says, shutting his eyes. "It was always supposed to be this way."

"Even the, uh, passing out?" Dean asks. "Or is that new?"

Castiel's face tightens, and Dean can practically feel the irritation radiating off him. "It's not supposed to happen," he says.

"Trust me, Cas, I got that part." Dean sighs and gives into the impulse to wipe the blood off Cas' nose and lip with an already disgusting pillowcase. "You're gonna be okay, though, right? I mean, we're kind of in the middle of a war here." He tries for a joke and it falls miserably flat.

"I'm aware," Castiel says. His voice grows stronger each time he uses it, and Dean isn't sure what the recovery period for broken angels is, but Cas is quickly regaining his color.

"I just," Dean says, half-useless and half-unsure. "We need you, Cas. We need your help if we're gonna beat Lucifer. Hell—hell, Cas, I need you." Dean's hands are nearly shaking, but he digs them into his legs and rubs up and down his thighs to let the nervous tension dissipate. "I've been useless the whole time you were out, man," he says, his mouth running completely independent of his brain. "Can't do this without you."

And it's true; it's so painfully true. Dean's been running around like a chicken with its head cut off for the past thirty-six hours or however long it's been, worried about Cas and terrified of what it means for the world if he's not going to be okay. The thought of losing Cas hits him with almost the same petrifying rush as the idea of losing  _Sam_. Dean doesn't know when Cas started being just that important to him.

He thinks it started when Cas told Dean he was worth more than suicide.

"There it is," Cas says, brow smoothing out as he looks at Dean. "Humility."

"What?" Dean asks, confused.

"Pride is the sin and humility is the virtue," Cas explains. "You're recognizing for the first time you can't do this on your own."

"Cas," Dean says, and this is a test of his infinite patience. "I've always known that."

"There is a difference between knowing it and truly acknowledging that you need help," Castiel says. He pushes himself to sit up, and Dean twitches with the need to make him lie back down. "You should recognize it. No man has ever conquered nations on his own."

Dean nods, looking away from the intensity burning in Castiel's eyes.

"What we're doing isn't just rebellion," Cas says slowly, like he's sounding his own thoughts into words for the first time, and Dean wonders how much time he's been thinking about what he's about to say. "This is destruction. No matter who wins, something will be destroyed—and we are destroying the path of the world. There will be nothing left for life to aim for. No destiny, nothing."

"And that's a good thing, right?" Dean asks desperately. "Everyone can do whatever they want."

"Is it not the same so long as you don't know your destiny?" Cas asks. "Before you knew, were you not convinced every choice you made was your own? Every step of your life has been carefully controlled and pushed into place, but it never mattered to you before."

"What—Cas! Whose side are you on?" Dean yells, heart leaping into his throat.

"Yours," Castiel says, trapping Dean there with his gaze. "I chose your side once and now I have no other choice. But this isn't simple, Dean. God has a plan and we are  _decimating_  it by being here now." Cas throws himself to his feet, steady and strong now. "Have you thought about what you're ending?"

Dean gapes at him. Cas looks wild, his eyes wide and his hands twitching uncontrollably—he looks  _insane_ , is the heart of it, and Dean is a little afraid of how uncontrolled he is acting right now.

"There will no longer be purpose to life. No choice to  _choose_." Castiel looks Heavenward and says, "Whatever happens will happen, and we will never know if it is for the best."

"Heaven thinks the Apocalypse is for the best," Dean points out, rising to his feet.

"Is it still better to get rid of God's plan?" Castiel asks. "Even with our destinies carved in stone, we have the ultimate free will—we can choose to follow or to rebel, but without them all we will have is existence."

Which...Dean isn't really up for a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life. He's not the smart one, the one who's been to college and earned a goddamn pre-law degree. He isn't built for this.

"Dammit, Cas, I don't have the answers," Dean says, crushing the heels of his hands to his forehead. "I don't know what we're doing with this. Sometimes I think it'd be better to just fucking say yes because I don't think we can ever win this fight."

"I don't know if we can either," Castiel says hollowly. His shoulders are slumped just the tiniest bit, enough for Dean to notice that he barely has the strength to go on anymore. "I don't know if we're making a better kingdom or if we're just breaking one that's already broken."

Dean turns to the wall, scrubbing a hand across his face. He can't—he just. Can't.

Not like this, not if Cas doesn't still wildly believe in this crazy thing they're doing. Because for some reason, this whole time, Dean's ability to care has been hinging on the dedication of a renegade angel. Without it, he has no reason to keep going.

Some nights he's okay. Some nights he believes in fighting and screwing over the angels so the world doesn't crash into the sun and burn, or whatever the hell the archangels have planned for this fight. Those nights, he knows they're gonna make it through this, maybe even in one piece, and he doesn't worry about fate or free will because they will beat it anyway.

Other nights, though,  _most_ nights. Most nights, he's already given up.


	13. The Truth about Love

Dean's pretty sure some of his fingers are broken, but it was worth it to punch that dickhead in the face. He feels vindicated now, regardless of the fact that his hand throbs and he doesn't think he got the message across that he doesn't want any more fucking  _angels_  messing with his life. At least he got to hit someone.

They're at the library in town because Sam had an idea and he wants to check it against books and town records. Dean's supposed to be searching old newspapers for previous cases of people eating each other, but it's hard to concentrate when just looking at the words makes him want to scream.

"Did you know about this?" Dean finally snaps at Cas when he appears, setting down a pile of books Sam wants to go through. "Did you know it was all a lie?"

"John and Mary Winchester were in love," Castiel answers, frowning at Dean. "Cupids take their jobs very seriously."

"It's not love if—" Dean starts, but an angry looking man shushes him. He continues, quieter, "It's not love if you were forced into it, Cas. That's not the same thing."

"Dean," Castiel says, sighing. "It goes beyond that. Your grandparents, their parents—they were all set up by cupids, all the way back to Cain and Abel. It was always meant to be them, just as it was always meant to be you."

Dean shakes his head, scowling, and turns back to the microfiche. He doesn't know why he's arguing with an  _angel_ about this because they have no point of reference for what love's supposed to be like. Not like Dean's much better, honestly, but he understands that people are supposed to fall in love because they care about each other, not because Heaven is bored and needs them to have kids.

"Goddammit, Sam, what am I even looking for?" Dean says as he flips past another article about a local dog show and Sam sets down a second pile of books.

"Fifteen years ago, couples eating each other, killing each other," Sam says, thumbing through a book distractedly. "Anything out of the ordinary."

 _Out of the ordinary,_  for Christ fucking sake, it feels like Dean's the only one who's still worried about the giant fucking elephant in the room named 'angels set up my parents so they could watch them die and then take over their sons' bodies and destroy the world.'

And he's not up for the introspection required to know  _why_  he feels so angry about this; Dean just knows he wants to stand up on top of this table and rage about it. Not even Sam cares, it feels like, and of course Cas doesn't. He probably stood by, watched them plan this out in detail, and added in the twist Dean would feel in his heart when he found out he's only a means to an end.

Dean wants to be more than that. Fuck, he wants to  _save the world_ , not step aside and watch it burn as he's trapped inside his own body.

What's the point?

"What's the point?" Dean says to himself. Cas' head snaps up to look at him, something flaring in his gaze.

"What do you mean?" Castiel says.

Dean glances around for Sam, but he's buried himself out back in the stacks of books again. "What's the point of any of this?" he says quietly, eyes drifting to look out the window. The sky is threatening to snow. "Dicks up in Heaven have been planning this for so long. Do you really think they're not going to get their way?"

"Plans are made to be changed," Cas says, turning back to his book after a long, searching look in Dean's direction. It's a far cry from how he used to shove Dean around the instant he expressed doubt in their plan of action.

 _We're all losing hope_ , Dean thinks as Sam comes back and glares at him when he sees Dean isn't working. God, he hopes they can end this soon.

\---

Dean's drunk and that means it's okay to think this right now.

His parents were forced to be together. By cupids, by dick angels who—who—okay, so Dean's not entirely sure  _how_  they did it, but he's pretty damn certain there was underhanded scheming. The cupid said it all—they hated each other until Heaven stepped in and made them perfect together.

John and Mary Winchester. They are the standard Dean has held up as love his entire life, and after a  _lifetime_  spent half-thinking he'd find the Mary to his John, he finds out he's never gonna get that. And it has nothing to do with hunting or the Apocalypse, not this time. It's because Mary and John Winchester were just tools for the angels to build their vessels with and they never would have stayed together if not for some serious interference from the sidelines.

Dean doesn't really know how to describe love if it's not what his parents had. He loves Sam, sure, went to Hell for him even, but that's not what he means. It's the feeling of rapture, of having that one person that could burn away and  _destroy_ him if they were ever gone because he always believed in the kind of love that led to a decades long hunt back and forth across the United States just to get revenge.

Probably John never would have snapped like he did if the cupids hadn't made him love Mary so much.

And so what if that would mean Dean was never born? Fuck, he's so fucking  _sick_ of having to care about his life. His mind has been slipping back to Hell more and more lately anyway.

He drinks. Dean drinks and drinks the night away, curled up on a queen-sized bed with a moldy comforter while Sam dicks around on his laptop, and he doesn't stop drinking until his eyes slide shut of their own accord and he puts himself to sleep that way. Maybe, if he's lucky, his heart will stop somewhere in the night and his body will stay bloated with alcohol until Sam burns him on top of a funeral pyre and he goes up violently.

Dean just wants to  _burn_.

\---

Dean doesn't know how many more times he can watch this happen to Sam, see the blood smeared around his mouth, and know that it always ends in caging him away to suffer through the pain of detox without anyone there to tell him it's going to be okay. Wanting to be there with him just to wipe the fucking sweat off his forehead drives Dean away because it's too much. He used to take care of his baby brother, and now he just locks him up like a junkie.

He lurches up the staircase, out the door, and into Bobby's yard because he can't hear Sam out here. The pounding in his head ceases immediately and the prayer flies out of his mouth before he can rethink it.

They need help. They need so much help, and it's not coming. Cas can't find God and Dean thinks stupidly that if he just  _asks_ , maybe God will sweep in, a force of justice to put Lucifer and Michael back in their places and stop this whole damn mess.

But there are no sudden, divine symbols; lightning doesn't rain from the sky and the ground doesn't shake. The only thing that  _does_  happen is he starts to cry and Castiel pops into existence entirely too close to Dean for him to be comfortable, and he says, "You're praying."

"Obviously," Dean snaps, wrenching himself away from Cas. He still hasn't gotten over the image of Castiel on his knees with raw meat falling from his lips, and he hopes in a sudden flash of disgust that Cas did whatever the angelic equivalent of brushing his teeth is. Rubbing a hand across his eyes to get rid of the tears and calm himself down, Dean says, "What do you want?"

"Praying requires diligence," Cas says. It sounds cryptic to Dean, but he suspects Sam would understand. A vaguely annoyed look flashes over Castiel's face so quickly Dean thinks he imagined it, but he says, "The opposite of sloth, Dean."

"Right. The...sins thing," Dean says, turning away. He wishes he had a beer. Or something stronger, like a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes, despite the fact that he's never been much of a smoker.

Castiel touches the back of Dean's elbow carefully, and he tries to fight his natural reaction to lean into it. It doesn't work, and Castiel just grips him tighter and pulls Dean around until they're face to face.

"Bobby will take care of Sam tonight," Cas says quietly. "You need to get away from here."

"I have to be here for Sam," Dean tells him, finally managing to jerk his arm away.

"You can't help him, Dean," Castiel says; as if Dean doesn't already fucking  _know_  that. "You're only going to hurt yourself if you stay."

"Maybe I deserve that," Dean says, and he doesn't really mean it when he does. It just...comes out and suddenly it's the truth, like he meant to say that exact thing all along and it's a natural extension of his thoughts.

Castiel doesn't answer him. He takes Dean's arm again before Dean can shout for him to stop and they fly away, back to the same upscale hotel room Cas took him to before.

"Dude!" Dean shouts, jumping back. "You can't just—"

"Yes, I can," Castiel says in the most long-suffering tone of voice that Dean has ever heard, and he actually doesn't know what to say to that.

"Look," Dean says eventually. "Just because Famine thinks I'm dead inside or whatever doesn't—"

"Is that what he said to you?" Castiel says, head snapping back to Dean.

"Doesn't mean I can just leave Sam alone there, okay?" Dean finishes firmly. "How did you miss that part?" he adds, brows furrowing. Cas had been right there.

"I was occupied," Cas says sharply, and he looks slightly embarrassed. Dean can't help but snort at him.

"Whatever, Cas. Just take me back. I can't leave Sam there."

"No," Cas says, looking at Dean as if that should have been obvious.

"What the hell do you mean  _no_?" Dean says, throwing his hands up in the air even though he knows it's useless to argue with Cas when he really has his mind set on something. He's a lot like Sam in that way.

"This argument is circular," Cas says, looking around. "Are you hungry?"

Dean resists the urge to scream in frustration. "Fine, Cas. Okay, then, fine. If you know so much about me, tell me why Famine doesn't make me hungry. What am I doing wrong there, huh? It's because I'm empty, isn't it. I've been empty since you pulled me from Hell."

Castiel's face absolutely melts at that, which is not at all the expression Dean was going for.

"You're not empty, Dean," Cas says. "You don't want to feel anymore— _that_  is what you hunger for, and so Famine made sure you wanted for nothing."

"He said I was dead inside. Cas, he looked at me and he said I am  _dead_ ," Dean says, and he doesn't know why it's so important that Cas understands this. "I have a soul and it means nothing."

"It means  _everything_ , Dean. A human without a soul is not a human any longer," Castiel says, his eyes sparking as he clenches his fists tightly.

"What the hell would you know about being human?" Dean shoots back, and he knows it's completely unfair, but he doesn't care. Cas stays silent. Dean looks at him, eyes tracing his blank face, and he says, "I wish I was dead."

"No," Castiel says derisively. "You wish you didn't have to deal with this."

"Same thing, right?" Dean yells. "Same goddamn thing. The only way I can get away from this is if I'm dead, because that way I just have to go back to Hell and let them put me to work. No more Apocalypse, no more freaking angels, just—"

Castiel grabs Dean by the forearm and fucking swings his chest into the wall, crowding him against it and pressing him down until Dean heaves to get breath into his lungs. "If you don't pick yourself up," he snarls, voice  _burning_  in a way Dean has never heard before, "and you don't decide to save the world, you will never get back to Hell. I told you that the only way you would ever get back there is if I threw you in myself, and that is still true." He breathes harshly out against Dean's ear, chuckling darkly and licking his lips so his tongue brushes the shell of Dean's ear. "You can never die, Dean. Not while they still want you on their side."

"Fuck you," Dean says, wrenching his shoulder as he tries to throw Castiel off. "Fucking get off, Cas."

" _No_ ," Cas says, slamming Dean back to the wall with his forearm over Dean's throat. Dean's fingers automatically go to scrabble uselessly at the sleeve of his coat. "You are not allowed to give up just because you are tired."

Dean snarls in indignation, trying to get a leg up and twist Cas' knee out from under him, anything to make him back off, but Cas just slams his hips forward to pin him there until Dean can't move his legs any more than he can move his head. He's left immobilized, staring into Cas' eyes and wondering how it ever came to this.

There's a spiteful feeling welling up inside of Dean, one that wants to punch all of Castiel's buttons in just the right way until he  _snaps_. Dean is tired of being the weak one; he's done being just a pathetic human. It's part of the reason he'd rather be back in Hell some days, but right now it loosens his mouth and shuts off his filter, and Dean says, "At least I'm not the asshole who abandoned his  _family_  when I got tired."

It hits home violently. Castiel's eyes flash so brightly that Dean is left blinking spots out of the corners of his vision, because that was Cas' true form right there.

"Don't pretend to know anything about my family," Cas says so tightly Dean thinks his voice might break in half. "You don't have a  _hope_  of understanding what happened to them."

"Yeah, sure," Dean says, jerking his shoulder backwards to try and get Cas off. "Little brother got a mind of his own and had to leave, so now the big brother's pissed about it." He laughs, short and sharp with his face pressed against the wall. "I understand that completely. And you're just like him, how you fucking ran away the second you found a better option."

"I am nothing like Lucifer," Castiel says, fingers tightening painfully on Dean's arm as he twists it upwards just that much further until Dean cries out in pain. " _Nothing_."

"That's not what I'm seeing," Dean spits. Now he's curling against Castiel just enough to make sure his ribs don't break as breathing gets harder and harder to do. "You disobeyed God; you fell from Heaven. Fuck, you—"

"I never stopped loving humanity," Cas says, interrupting Dean with a vicious tug upwards on his arm. It feels like a knee-jerk reaction, a twitch, not something he planned to do.

Dean laughs. God, this is such a bad fucking idea, baiting an angel, but it's Castiel. Cas would never hurt him, not for real, right? He's gonna threaten Dean and bruise the shit out of his skin, but he's not going to break him, no matter how much Dean wishes Cas would just tie him up and make him scream.

Dean still doesn't know if he's dreaming right now, because the feeling of Cas pressed all the way up against him in this way is strikingly like the things he's imagined before.

Cas buries his face in the back of Dean's neck, his mouth open and wet against the jut of Dean's spine at the base of it, but he doesn't do anything more than just stay there and pant. "Dean," Cas says in the most shattered voice Dean's ever heard from him. He repeats Dean's name again, seems to move  _closer_ , if that's even possible, and whispers, "I fell for you; I love you."

"No, you don't," Dean says immediately. "You're an angel. You don't know how to love." His mind is tripping over itself to come up with something that isn't  _what the hell_ , and he can't find anything else to think.

"Dean," Cas says, breathless. Castiel lets up on him, drawing back just enough to turn Dean back around before he's getting all up in Dean's space again. It's minus the arm on his throat this time, though, and Dean isn't sure if he liked that better or not. "I'm an Angel of the Lord. I know nothing  _but_  how to love."

Dean's head pitches forward of its own accord, and he yanks himself back before he can do something stupid like kiss the awe on Cas' face.

"Get out of here, Cas," he says, throat dry and hoarse. "Just leave. Quit lyin' to yourself. You're in over your head."

"You don't believe me," Cas says, and it's not a question. His eyes search Dean's as if he thinks he can find all the answers there. Dean doesn't know what he sees in there, but whatever it is, Cas freezes in place—even his thumb stills from where it had been rubbing carefully over Dean's side. "You think I'm lying."

"What else am I supposed to think?" Dean says, even though it sticks a lump in his throat. "That you actually thought I loved you because we fucked a couple of times? Sex isn't love, Cas. It's just sex."

Cas' gaze deadens as he looks at Dean. The mask of a soldier falls back into place quick as anything—it's something Dean recognizes from his own face, the kind of thing he puts on when there's no point in pretending anymore. Inside his mind, the part that had insisted Dean was wrong shuts up at that, and his mouth twists unconsciously into an ugly sneer.

"Leave," he says, and the last thing Cas does before he goes is dump Dean back in Bobby's yard.

 _You're only going to hurt yourself if you stay_.

Dean's fairly certain Cas no longer cares if he hurts himself. He just made sure of it.

\---

Castiel's own words are haunting him.  _You're only going to hurt yourself if you stay_ , he said.  _You need to get away from here. You can't help him._  Castiel maintains he loves Dean—is in love with him, even. Dean is damaged, but so is Castiel, and despite whatever reservations Dean has about this, Castiel still thinks they could be in love together and still stop the Apocalypse.

Except Dean is lying about this. Badly, too, because Castiel can see straight through him without even trying.

The strange thing is that Castiel spent most of his life watching humans fall in and out of love and do stupid things because of it, but he never understood why. He has never understood the desperation, the recklessness, or the complete involvement of being in love, not until he hit the ground beneath Heaven and discovered the meaning on his own. Love wrecks Castiel in a way it never could a human because he isn't built for this.

Dean's right, in a way. Castiel is in over his head, but that doesn't mean he is confused about his feelings. It's in the way his world narrows when Dean is around, the feeling of Dean's gaze on him—the idea of holding Dean beneath him and breaking him apart with a touch.

He isn't confused. He's in love. That part is simple enough, even if none of the rest of it is.

Castiel picked the wrong human to be in love with. He chose the one who is oftentimes incapable of loving him back, the one who can't fathom the idea that someone could actually care about him as deeply as he cares about them. Dean comes from a world of abandonment and it's not his fault, but that doesn't mean Castiel deserves to be pushed aside until Dean can let go enough to want him. It's not fair and he doesn't care.

Wanting to help, being able to help—they're two entirely different things. Castiel can want to help Dean all he wants, but if Dean can't let him in, how is he supposed to do anything? He tried. He  _tried_  to show Dean how to stop sinning and how to exist beyond the grip Hell had on him, but Castiel has hardly helped that. He's become a creature of sin, too.

He lusts for sex, greedy for Dean's words and smile, and rages with wrath even now. It's the least of what he's done, concerning how he fell from Heaven and is currently leading a rebellion, but it's still all because of Dean. Castiel doesn't blame him for it—he made his own decisions, despite everything, but he never would have seen this path if Dean hadn't shown it to him.

That's love, Castiel guesses. It twists angels just as surely as it twists humans, and he's too blinded by it to care.

\---

The air sits heavy in the Impala between him and Sam. Dean can practically smell the blame Sam is placing on himself for dragging Bobby into danger with them, and he hates that he can't just wrap Sam up in his arms and make it better like he could when they were kids.

There's a town coming up ahead, about twenty miles down the road according to a sign, and Dean hopes it's on the bigger side just so he can find some decently healthy café for them to eat at, one that serves salads with baby spinach and shit instead of just Iceberg lettuce. Sam would like that, even if it means Dean has to contend with one of those weird vegan burgers.

Places like that always have the best pie, anyway. Something about only buying organic, he thinks.

Luck isn't on Dean's side, however, and the best he can find is an Italian place, some chain restaurant that looks too swanky to exist in such a little Podunk town.

Sam looks up when Dean pulls into the parking lot, his brow already knitting together in confusion. "Dean, what are—?"

"Hope you're hungry, Sammy," Dean says, throwing the car into park and pulling out the keys. "We're getting noodles."

"Pasta," Sam corrects automatically. Dean smirks—Sam has always hated hearing Dean refer to real Italian cooking as  _noodles_ , and even Sam manages to duck his head and huff out a laugh when he realizes what Dean's done. "Are you sure we can afford this?"

"We might have to skip the four star hotel tonight, but I think we'll be fine for one night," Dean says, rolling his eyes as he gets out of the car. His back pops twice when he stretches, getting rid of the strain of too many hours spent in a car. "'Sides, I'm craving real spaghetti."

"Yeah," Sam says. His smile grows, and Dean realizes with a sharp pang that it's been far too long since he's seen Sam smile for real.

As Dean predicted, the décor is overdone and trying way too hard to look like it isn't sitting in the middle of the American Midwest, but Sam looks completely at ease, sliding into a booth that isn't sticky and covered in god knows what. Their waitress brings them bread and drinks in real glasses, setting them on top of little cardboard coasters, and asks them if they want to get an appetizer. Dean has no idea what spinach and artichoke dip is, but Sam's enjoying it.

Mostly it just tastes like cheese, and Dean is okay with that.

"What's the occasion?" Sam asks after the chips are gone and he's waiting to ask for another basket to finish the dip. "I mean, this is pretty nice for us, Dean."

Dean shrugs. "I told you, I just wanted some real spaghetti."

"Dude, I know you. You'd rather eat fake spaghetti every day of your life than step inside a place like this," Sam says dismissively, and, yeah, maybe Dean shouldn't try to lie to him. "So what's up?"

"Why do you think I didn't come back as a zombie?" Dean says instead. Sam rolls his eyes, fixing Dean with a glare. "Come on, humor me. I mean, Bobby said Death himself raised those guys in Sioux Falls. He has to be able to control that sort of thing, right?"

"He's under Lucifer's control," Sam points out. "It's possible he can't control his powers completely right now."

"You'd just think, after all the time I spent in Hell, I wouldn't still be all there, you know?" Dean says. "You'd think I'd be off my rocker at least a little."

Sam snorts. "Dean, neither of us needs to die and come back to life to be crazy. We've already got that part covered."

"Cas didn't come back as a zombie either and he's not crazy," Dean argues.

"Cas is an angel," Sam says like that explains it. "Can angels even  _be_  zombies?"

Dean blinks at him. "You're right, Sammy, I think you've just asked the ultimate question of life. We should get Michael to flash on down and weigh in."

"Jerk," Sam says, laughing.

"Bitch."

"How is Cas, by the way?" Sam asks, taking a drink of his iced tea. "I haven't seen him since we found Famine."

Scowling, Dean says, "Why do I have to know how he is?"

"I'm just asking," Sam says, holding up his hands. "I know you guys have gotten pretty tight since—oh, don't give me that look, Dean. You're allowed to have other friends."

"Yeah, well, I haven't seen him around either," Dean says, tearing a roll apart with his fingers.

"Still searching for God, then?"

"Yeah," Dean says. He assumes that's where Cas is.

Sam nods. "Cas'll find Him."

As Dean carefully steers the conversation away from God and Castiel, he relaxes more and more into the evening. Their food comes—spaghetti for Dean, of course, and then a weird pasta thing with shrimp, mushrooms, and green things on it for Sam. He takes one look at it, and he means not to say anything, but Sam glances up at just the right time to catch the look on Dean's face.

His laughter is still playing in Dean's head by the time Dean falls asleep that night, and he knows this is the one time he can safely say he won't dream about Hell or Cas.

If that's disappointing or not, Dean isn't going to think about it.


	14. Demolition Lovers

_You son of a bitch,_  Castiel thinks _. I believed in you. I believed in you, you son of a bitch, I_ believed _in you._

So losing faith, it feels like this, then. Castiel thought he had been there when Lucifer rose and it turned out God had done nothing to stop it—had encouraged it, even, with His plans that had been in place for thousands of years.

Now Castiel knows there's a stark, sharp difference between a lack of faith in a Father that hadn't answered his calls yet and a Father who refuses ever to answer his calls. The first is like obdormition of a limb and then the release in letting the blood flow again, but the second is a pressure that never lets up, until the pins and needles never go away and they grow and grow and grow. They grow until the only option is amputation because that limb is dead and it's only dead weight now, so the only thing left to do is cut it out of your life entirely.

That's what losing faith is like. He feels lighter, freer, but not necessarily better. Castiel lost something that he's never going to be able to get back, and it's no more a blessing than it is a curse.

He leaves the Winchesters in their hotel room with the worthless amulet because he doesn't want them to see him like this. For some reason, they still believe in him—they still look at him and see all this strength and grace, even though he's fucked up everything with Dean and is a powerless shell of the creature he once was. Castiel doesn't understand. He doesn't understand why God would leave them all alone, he doesn't understand why he cares more about these useless humans than he does his only family, and he doesn't understand why Dean fucking Winchester doesn't believe Castiel when he says he loves him.

So much for being an all-knowing angel.

He flies until he reaches some unknown point in America. If he cared to know, Castiel could probably come up with the exact geographical location, past names, and important events in the history of this place, but for once, he doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to be an angel or a warrior. He just wants to be Cas, the man who played a role in starting the Apocalypse and regrets it with everything he has in him, and now the only idea he had to stop it has become dust in the wind.

Even the things he says now are just parodies of phrases he's heard Dean use before, little nods to things Castiel doesn't have a hope of understanding. He's not human enough, not angelic enough—he's just a mistake in creation, really. All the angels who have fallen before him have embraced humanity like Anna or stayed powerful and absolute as Gabriel did. They have not found themselves caught in the middle as Castiel has.

God, he's so alone. Castiel is alone and God does not give a single fuck that his youngest son is reduced to simply praying for salvation because he's not strong enough for this anymore.

Really, the only question left at this point is what he's supposed to do. Unbidden, a thought comes to his mind—what would Dean do? Get drunk, probably. Drink his problems away until he couldn't feel them anymore and then fall asleep. Castiel's watched it happen enough to times to be able to picture it in his head.

He's an angel. He can't get drunk, and that's terribly unfortunate considering the circumstances. Castiel would like to get drunk, actually—he would like to get lost in sin and debauchery, even if only just for one night where he didn't have to deal with clarity.

Still, he turns to face the old liquor store behind him. The lights are on, a red and blue open sign flickering sadly in the grimy window. Castiel doesn't have to look inside it to know that the place is a horrible excuse for a business, considering how much deceit and law breaking it indulges in.

Castiel thinks about it. He could go in there, take liquor, and use his grace to make the cashier forget he was ever there. He could do that so easily—it would hardly subtract from the little grace he has, and it would be much easier to see if he can get drunk if he actually has alcohol.

Dean would do it. Never in his life would Dean pass up a chance to get at free alcohol, regardless of if he was going to get drunk off it. But Castiel isn't Dean, and he can't base every decision he makes off what Dean might do in his place, all because Castiel is in some sort of sick, sinful love with him. It would be wrong, but not any more wrong than rebelling against Heaven and plotting to destroy Lucifer so the Apocalypse cannot go on as planned.

He doesn't mean to start walking towards the liquor store, but the reminder of everything he's done to get here makes his feet start moving before Castiel fully realizes why he's doing it.

Funny how that works. He's become so used to this body and this lifestyle that Castiel can't even control simple things like walking anymore. Pathetic. Even Balthazar would be ashamed of him.

When he gets inside, there's an old man working at the counter, smoking a cigarette and coughing without a care in the world. Castiel can see the cancer growing in his lungs as the man coughs loudly and wetly, and he feels nothing but a surge of cross anger that he would willingly choose the path to disease while fully knowing the possible consequences he was inviting. Humans are stupid that way.

A second man is browsing the aisles, beer and another bottle already in hand as he searches for something else. Castiel stands in the doorway, observing, and neither of them even bother to look up at him.

Castiel starts at the aisle closest to him. There are bottles of every shape and size lined up, and he doesn't know anything about any of them. He hasn't seen Dean drink any of this before, and it hits Castiel then how completely out of his element he is here. He likes to think he has some sort of experience with humanity now, but he doesn't know the difference between a bottle of brandy and a bottle of whiskey without Dean here to explain it to him.

Beer isn't strong, he remembers, so it's probably best not to bother with that. He's going to have a hard enough time getting drunk as it is without simply imbibing drinks with low alcohol content.

The other customer finally grunts loudly in triumph as he discovers his last bottle, and brings his purchase up to the register and letting it clink loudly down on the counter. Castiel watches the old man heave a put upon sigh, typing the items into an old cash register and generally glaring at everything for disturbing his smoke.

"That'll be $21.95," the old man says in a bored, spiteful tone, and Castiel has to remind himself that he's not here to interfere and strike the fear of God into any humans today.

"Yeah?" the customer says, reaching into his coat to pay, and when his hand comes back out, it's with a handgun. "Because I think you should be paying me."

Castiel does roll his eyes then, because it's so pathetic to see the way the man's hand shakes with the gun, even though his fingers are tight and sure on the trigger. He isn't above shooting anybody, which is a pain in the ass, but the old man doesn't seem to get that.

"Whatever, kid, put it away," he says, scoffing and tapping the ash off the end of his cigarette into an ashtray. "You gotta pay for your shit."

Poking the gun closer, the man—John Martin, Castiel sees suddenly inside his head, aged twenty-five years with no living family and an apartment he's about to be kicked out of for forgetting to pay his rent—snarls, "Give me the money, old man, or I'll get you out of the way and take it myself."

Castiel flies instead of walking, just enough so he's right behind the man—practically a boy, really, he's still so young. The trigger gets pulled just at that moment, sinking a bullet into the man's shoulder and making him howl as he stumbles backward into the wall, sliding down it slowly.

"That was highly unnecessary," Castiel says, and the man jumps around, startled. Castiel hadn't considered the possibility that he had been invisible when he entered the store, but it wouldn't be the most terrible thing that's happened to him today.

"Hey, man, I'll shoot you, too," the boy says, "unless you back the fuck off, right fucking now."

"I'm giving you a chance to leave," Castiel replies mildly. "I suggest you take it."

"What, you think I'm just gonna pussyfoot out of this now?" he shouts, backing around the counter until he can get into the cash register. "Fuck off, man."

"I am not your man," Castiel says from right next to the boy's elbow. John starts, swinging the gun around and shooting Castiel in the chest.

It doesn't affect him at all, which is more of a relief than Castiel expected. Being cut off from Heaven has been hard on him, and it's nice to know he's still so completely unaffected by human weapons. Castiel simply sighs as John shoots him again, right through the heart this time. He's a decent shot—far more experienced than Castiel would have originally guessed.

"What the—what the hell?" John says, and he shoots again, point blank through Castiel's forehead, and, really, that's just rude. "What the fuck, who the—who the fuck are you?"

Castiel recognizes an opening when he sees it, and he takes a minute to shake his wings out as the lights explode into sparks all around the liquor store. His sword slides into his hand almost as an afterthought, and with a giddy feeling, he realizes how great it feels to be an angel like this again.

"I am Castiel," he says, powerless to stop the manic grin spreading across his face. "And I am an Angel of the Lord." There's thunder, then lightning, and Castiel knows his wings are spreading out as far as they can, silhouetted against the dingy walls of the liquor store.

"There's no..." John says weakly, stumbling back and catching himself with a hand on the counter as his gun clatters to the floor. Castiel watches it fall contemplatively, wondering if now is as good a time as any to start using guns.

John suddenly begins to scramble backward, his alcohol and money forgotten. Castiel holds up his sword and spins it between his fingers—he's only putting on a show at this point. He has no reason to kill this boy, but he's not going to let a chance like this go, not when he can still contribute to the world by scaring the shit out of some useless kid.

He watches John all the way out the door, their eyes locked together because John can't look help but stare at Castiel in terrified fascination. This is right, Castiel thinks. This is what humans are supposed to look like when they look upon the glory of an Angel of the Lord.

Only. Castiel isn't exactly an Angel of the Lord anymore, is he?

No, he muses as John finally falls over himself to get out of the parking lot and away from him. He's an angel, of course, but he's hardly affiliated with his Father or Heaven anymore, and that destroys his high of power faster than any bullet ever could.

Castiel turns his gaze to the man on the floor. He's wheezing for breath, staring up at Castiel as if he's seen a ghost, and Castiel takes pity on him, touching the old man's forehead and sending him straight to a hospital nearby.

That leaves just Castiel, alone in the dark of night in the middle of a liquor store, and the idea of getting drunk just became a whole lot more feasible.

He passes a hand over his forehead. Already healed. Castiel, the angel who isn't an angel, and at least his skin isn't still broken and bleeding. That would probably be more obnoxious than anything else, because it would be difficult to show his face around humans with a bullet wound on his face like a glaring mark of  _otherness_.

Castiel starts drinking out of a blue bottle without stopping to check what it is. It burns his throat on the way down, and he wants more of that feeling immediately.

Turns out angels  _can_  get drunk, given enough alcohol and time, and it's obvious why this feeling appeals so much to Dean. It's morning by the time Castiel's mind is thoroughly scrambled—he can't think straight, forget feeling emotions—and the sun rises without anyone coming to the store. Humans are terribly unobservant like that.

He drinks a lot after that night.

\---

Dean hates the way Cas looks when he's drunk, glassy-eyed and too blissed out for an uptight Angel of the Lord. Slap some different clothes on him and take away the otherworldly glint in his eyes and Dean would be looking at Cas the druggie from 2014, about to indulge in an orgy because he doesn't have anything better to do with his life anymore.

He almost doesn't want to give Cas any painkillers when the hangover kicks in, as if he could somehow punish Cas with pain for getting so smashed, but Dean knows by experience that never works.

It feels like Dean's already enabling Cas' drug habit just by tossing him the bottle, but they have work to do. They have a whore to kill and a town to save from Hell, and that's not going to happen any time soon so long as their biggest weapon is down for the count.

Besides, he gets it. God knows Dean drank for  _years_  because his dad was more concerned with the hunt than he was with his sons. It's not his place to judge Cas, not at all, especially because he knows how much it can help just to not feel anything for the brief amount of time between getting roaring drunk and passing out face first on the floor. The only difference is that it's about a million times more unsettling to see it happen to angel, even one who's fallen and rebelled as much as Cas has.

"Yeah, I've been there," Dean says, feeling awkward as he tries to offer his comfort. "I'm a big expert on deadbeat dads. So…yeah, I get it. I know how you feel."

Cas' face is carefully blank, shaking his head almost imperceptibly as he says, "How do you manage it?" Dean imagines all the things he could say.

_You drink._

_You hope that one day he starts caring._

_You drink when he never comes back._

_You wonder if it was your fault._

_You think about what you could have done to make him love you._

_You wish you could have kept your baby brother safe._

_You don't manage it. You don't get over it. It sits in you for the rest of your life, and you can't ever make yourself feel better, because that's your dad that hates you, not just a stranger you never have to see again. Your dad doesn't care about you anymore and it doesn't matter how hard you try to make him care about you. He never will._

Instead, he says, "On a good day, you get to kill a whore."

And that's the goddamn truth.

Cas laughs, rough and under his breath as he opens the bottle of Aspirin. "When are we leaving, O Fearless Leader?" he says, sarcastic and scathing as he tosses a handful of pills back.

"Don't call me that," Dean hisses, heart moving double time as he can't help but see that human version of Castiel instead of the real one. "I'm not—you can't.  _Don't._ "

"Fine, then, I won't," Castiel says, rolling his eyes.

"I mean, Cas," Dean says, walking slowly to the bench where Cas sits, sinking down next to him. "You know this isn't you, right? With the drinking and the painkillers and—you can't go all drugged-up Jimmy Hendrix on me again."

"Is that what you're labeling me as?" Cas says, his gaze piercing when he turns to look at Dean. "Obviously I'm completely wrong to do this, considering the only humans I've ever seen deal with losing their father have done exactly the same thing. Pardon me for trying to emulate."

"What happened to thinking we can stop this?" Dean says. He's grasping at straws now, the world breaking under him.

Cas snorts, head hanging forward until his forehead touches the top of the Aspirin bottle clutched in his hands. "What would you have me do, Dean?" he asks bitterly. "I rebelled so we could stop this, but I don't have a single fucking idea left right now."

"Then we keep going, right?" Dean says. His hands are shaking almost as much as his voice. Cas is the rock; Cas is the angel; he  _cannot give up_  because he is the only thing keeping Dean going right now. "We find another way—we figure out another plan. We have to. We can't just let Michael and Lucifer have at it."

"I know," Castiel says, raising his head to look at Dean. "I know, Dean."

Dean doesn't say it aloud, but he thinks,  _What are we going to do?_ He takes one last sideways look at Cas, sees the way he's staring aimlessly into the night like it might have answers for him.

Dean knows it's hopeless. He knows what he has to do.

\---

He takes off in the Impala the minute he can get away from Sam for more than two seconds. It's obvious that Sam isn't letting him out of his sight—he knows what it means that Dean killed the Whore, and he's not about to let it happen.

It isn't Sam's choice, though. He's not the one who's going to have to live with the consequences of this for eternity. Either Sam says yes or he doesn't, but Dean's going to be the one trapped in his own body while Michael rides him like a pony to the end of time. This is Dean; this is his choice, and he wants to get on the road one last real time. God knows he'll never see it again like this. Cars and roads and slow travel—it's all human and Earthly and not worth an archangel's time, and Dean just wants to see it one more time. He doesn't think that's a lot to ask.

This is it. This is life; this is Dean Winchester's last day on Earth, so he's going to visit a single mom and her kid because he's a masochistic asshole.

Sometimes Dean thinks about Lisa late at night, on the days he's not too drunk to form a coherent thought, and he wonders what life with her would be. It'd be normal, for one. Dean would have a steady job, maybe as a mechanic or something else where he could work with his hands, and a steady income, and a kid he picked up from school at 2:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, because normal people have schedules. They don't stay up for hours on end staking out houses to make sure a werewolf isn't going to turn up and eat the heart out of a five year old.

Then at night, Dean would sleep in the same bed as Lisa. Sleeping together, but not necessarily having sex, because normal people in normal relationships don't need to have sex all the time to be together. They'd wake up to an alarm clock—the same sound every morning, not dependent on the whim of whichever motel they were staying at—and have breakfast in the kitchen.

It doesn't sound horrible. Actually, it sounds pretty damn great, but it's not for Dean. Yeah, Lisa is Dean's better life. She's the benchmark for standard, normal living—a nice suburban house with a sweet kid and a lawn that needs mowing most every week. She represents a normal life, sure, but she's not—she isn't going to make Dean happy, not for real. He doesn't love her the way she deserves.

It hurts and it's painful to say, but Dean's never going to love her. He's wrecked, broken by someone else in his life that shouldn't mean as much to Dean as he does, and it's all Cas' goddamn fault in the first place for raising him from Hell and refusing to believe Dean isn't good enough.

He isn't good enough and whether Cas likes it or not, he is  _never_  going to be good enough. Dean has let too many innocent people die; he has tortured too many innocent people, and he has a taste for blood that never entirely went away after Hell. Fucked up and broken, that is just the way Dean Winchester rolls, and at least he's got a nice enough car that he does it in style.

Battle Creek isn't far from Blue Earth. He doesn't have to stop more than once, and that's just to take a leak and grab a meal out of a vending machine. Less than twelve hours on the road, and he feels like Hell, but it's daytime and Lisa looks beautiful as ever.

Even when he kisses her, Dean knows she's nothing more than a dream.

God, she's lovely and wonderful and everything that he could ever want in a wife and a family. But she isn't someone he would sacrifice himself for—she doesn't light him on fire from the inside out or have a brand on his soul that feels like pleasure and pain and execution under her hand. She isn't Cas.

It's been a long time coming, Dean thinks, for him to realize this. It's been there, just under his skin, waiting for him to wake up and smell the goddamn roses.

Dean's never going to love anyone the way he loves Cas. No one else can ever feel like a livewire under his fingers, under his heart, because he has been wrecked and torn open by the angel who saved him. He is a blessing and a curse, and Dean is stupidly, aching, desperately in love with him.

It makes it that much harder, knowing what he's about to do. Because this time, he sees it—he loves Cas just as fucking much as Cas loves him, and now he's about to hurtle himself into the end of days alone. Hell, he'd aim for the end with Cas; Dean would hold out and never say yes if Cas would always be by his side. They would drive and drive, town to town and road across road together, chasing down the damn devil and praying to a God that didn't care anymore, and they'd die that way, bloody and perfect, with wings burned into the ground and a smoking Chevy behind them.

Dean sees that future just as surely as he sees the one with Lisa, only this one is more tragic and beautiful than anything she could ever offer him.

In another life, in another world—Dean could have Castiel. But he's made up his mind. He can't watch any more people die in this stupid war, not if he can stop it. Some things are more important than love. They'll all go to Heaven, the people, and they will be happy there. It doesn't matter if Sam says yes to Lucifer, because either way, this battle is going to happen. Dean's ready for it.

He's always been a good soldier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we wait until Saturday for when I post the next chapter. :3


	15. Sound of Madness

Furious doesn't even  _begin_  to cover what Castiel's feeling right now, with his wings flared in indignation and his vessel practically vibrating with his anger. Dean does _not_  just get to hit the road and decide to say yes to Michael, and he especially isn't allowed to do so without even consulting Sam or Bobby or even Castiel _._

He gets it, he does. This battle is hard and it hurts, and most of the time they haven't the faintest clue what they can do to stop the devil. They've all wanted to give up and give in—a war is a war, and no one likes to fight on what feels like the losing side when the stakes are set so high. It's difficult. It's painful. It's unavoidable, because without the losing side, without Team Free Will's pathetic little stand against the entirety of Heaven and Hell, the angels take over and the world goes to shit.

Castiel has died for this cause once already, and he's not above doing it again. Dean doesn't get to give up on something Castiel died for.

He leaves Sam at the motel room with harsh instructions to find Dean however he can, and then Castiel goes to look himself. Which way Dean went is a mystery, but Castiel knows he will find Dean on a long stretch of quiet road where there's nothing in the world except the asphalt and the landscape around them.

He searches south, flitting frantically from road to road, because there's not a lot of the country north of Minnesota and there's a whole world below. Castiel calculates in his head all the distances Dean could have traveled between now and leaving, but he isn't there, and he isn't heading west to Bobby's or north as far as Castiel can tell. East, maybe—maybe he's east.

Castiel knows it's almost useless to be out here as dawn creeps in. There are too many destinations to pick from and too many different ways to get to each, and he has no idea where Dean might have gone—no hints, no clues, because Dean has been everywhere and seen it all, and he has loved too many places for Castiel to pin him down definitively. There are too many roads to check for the Impala's grumbling motor and Castiel is only one exhausted angel.

He doesn't understand how Dean could just leave like that. They reached an agreement, some weird, shaky common ground founded on deadbeat fathers and the after effects of alcohol, and, frankly, Castiel had thought that was just one more reason to hang on and not give in. It hurts that he was wrong, and Castiel doesn't want to deal with it. He has done nothing wrong, but at the same time, he feels like he has driven Dean away somehow. Perhaps it was the alcohol, or it could have been something else entirely. He doesn't  _know_ , and at this rate, it's likely he will never know.

His phone rings, shrill and loud on the empty roadside where he comes to a standstill. He's lost the methodical search he had before and is now popping up along random roads and praying that Dean will appear along one of them. He feels so useless. Once upon a time, he could see Dean all the way in the bowels of Hell, but his power has waned and Heaven is no longer on his side. Castiel is a failure.

"Hello, Sam," Castiel says into his phone, picking aimlessly at a stray string on his trench coat before he fixes it with a brush of fingers and his grace. "I have been unable to locate Dean."

"Well, I called Bobby, and we think we have Dean pinned down," Sam says. "We've got two places where he might be. Can you fly us? We need to work fast."

"Of course," Castiel says. Relief settles down through him slowly, curling through the tension in his wings, dissipating the anger and smoothing down the ruffled feathers. He hadn't even realized how tense he was, ready to fly off at any moment at the first call of news about Dean. "Where are you now?"

"The same motel," Sam says, and he hangs up the phone.

Castiel places his cell phone back in his pocket and pointedly doesn't hope that Sam really has managed to find Dean. He has had misplaced faith thrown back in his face far too often lately.

\---

If there's one thing Castiel honestly never expected Dean would do, it's use a banishing sigil on Castiel of all angels, because they've never been at such odds where Dean felt he had to resort to that. He's been angry with Castiel—furious, even, completely  _manic—_ but Dean has never been desperately so. And, apparently, when he is desperate, he fights without reservation, no holds barred, and doesn't take any prisoners, not when it's easier to just get Castiel out of the way.

The sigils are more annoying than anything. They sting at first and send angels to the outskirts of Heaven where orders are usually assigned, and were originally created as a way for angels to send themselves immediately back to Heaven if they were severely injured in battle. No one uses them anymore because it's more honorable to die in battle or to come home barely alive.

Castiel never realized before, but that changed right around six thousand years ago. Back when the archangels started to plan for this idea of an Apocalypse, as Gabriel told him.

What else has he forgotten?

Not Heaven, apparently, as he appears there. It's exactly the same as he remembers it, only with more angels than usual crowding around, waiting to be dispatched to Earth. There are hundreds here—the only times in history when Castiel can remember this many angels gathered together on the edges of Heaven were Lucifer's fall and Castiel's siege to Hell.

That says something about Castiel. The only two angels who have so directly contradicted their Father's wishes, and they are both at the center of the greatest battles the angels have ever had. He isn't like Lucifer, but he's getting damn close, ignoring his orders like he is. He and Lucifer, they're only different in motivation.

Castiel shields himself with his grace, and that makes it surprisingly easy to duck outside, just around the wall of the building to sneak away. This part of Heaven is a no-fly zone to Earth, but if he can just pass the next three buildings, he will be safe.

It feels wonderful to stretch his wings in Heaven again, even though he keeps them close and relatively restrained. There's nothing quite like it on Earth because he feels caged in no matter what he's doing.

He doesn't know if security is just bad around here now because the angels are completely secure in their ability to win this war or they just don't think the enemy will try to sneak. Both are dangerous for Heaven, and Castiel can't help the curl of his lip when he considers how over-confident they are. As soon as he sorts Dean out—and Dean  _will_  be sorted out, violently and painfully—the angels won't stand a chance.

Castiel has begun to understand what, exactly, makes it so that he believes in his rebellion. The angels don't understand when they look at humans—they all see the same thing, they see these muddy, disgusting creatures ripping the world apart one ribbon of beauty at a time, but Castiel knows better. He knows that humanity is wonderfully flawed in a way that you have to experience. You can't watch it from above because then you can't see the pain in a dying man's eyes or feel the love in a beating heart. Up here, there are equations that make up this sort of life. There is a mathematical equation for what has been, what is now, what will be, and what  _could_  be and none of the beautiful parts of humanity can be found in that. Castiel has experience. He knows what Earth looks like from above, and it will never show the full picture.

He put Dean back together from a series of equations, from numbers and letters carefully measured to show the concavity of the spaces between his fingers and the scattered points of his pores. Had Castiel known what he knows now, he would have sewed Dean's body up by the difference in roughness from his palms to his wrists or the way his face contorts when he smiles or comes, and Dean would have been thrice as beautiful, thrice as perfect, thrice as righteous. Castiel knows now what makes humans how they are, even if he cannot always comprehend it, and it has nothing to do with the placement of their internal organs the way angels treat them. Even Castiel used to treat them like that, as nothing more than savages.

It doesn't make the angels wrong to not know these things, but it makes them ignorant. They believe they know everything, that there is nothing God hasn't already told them, but they do not understand. They don't try to understand.

Castiel gets it, sometimes more than he thinks he would like to. It's about feeling the gritty pinpricks of dust in your eyes and the sweet sensation of punching a man and splitting his lip beneath your fingers; it's all in the way the scent of leather will linger on your clothes for ages and stay in your nose for even longer. Taking chances, taking risks, failing people, fucking it all up—that doesn't  _happen_  in Heaven; how could the angels ever know the difference?

Seeing them now, just the few that are around him, Castiel knows most of them will never understand. He can't force them to fall in love with humans or even just one human, but it doesn't mean they can't live in peace.

Love comes with anger, too, when you're part of humanity. Being in love means that Castiel wants to snap Dean's neck in  _half_  for running off to say yes. He hasn't said it yet, not if all the angels are still waiting in Heaven, but he's gunning for the position of bitch boy to Michael (Dean's term, not Castiel's) and he damn well plans to follow through this time.

He's not going to get a chance to, not this time.

Castiel secludes himself away once he reaches the part of Heaven where he can fly to Earth. Unfortunately, the obnoxious part about banishing sigils means that Castiel cannot go back to Bobby's yet. A little more time needs to pass on Earth before the sigil's power fades away enough that it won't blast Castiel straight back to Heaven the minute he gets out of here.

He waits. A younger Castiel might have prayed to pass the time, but now he simply stands and waits silently, brain rolling listlessly from topic to topic when the only thing he can think about is the one thing making him want to scream out his anger.

He's trying to forget the fact that he's angry at Dean, and it is not working.

It comes to him without his asking. A man, practically  _screaming_  out a prayer, says something to the effect of Our Father who art in Heaven I have Dean Winchester here before me and this is the address, blah something  _blah_ , thanks, Castiel can take it from here.

Castiel thanks the fact that he's still Dean's angel enough that he receives the prayers about Dean, and he flies immediately to Earth, brushing his fingers over the street side preacher's shoulder as he says, "You pray too loud." The man buckles to the ground instantly, and then Dean's right there, stupid and shining and rage fills Castiel unlike he has ever known before. He did not fall from Heaven into love to listen to a whining human complain that his life is worth the least, not when Castiel stormed Hell for him and decided to join in on his crazy scheme to destroy the devil and fuck over God's plan. Dean is worth saving, and Castiel will always be there to pick him up when he needs it. It's the downside of having a guardian angel when you're basically trying to kill yourself.

"What, are you crazy?" Dean yells when Castiel fists hands into the front of his scratchy canvas coat and slams Dean into a brick wall just off the side of the street.

"I rebelled for this?" Castiel shouts, swinging Dean into the opposite wall.  _Fuck_ , this is cathartic, swinging his fists into Dean's face and turning him bloody. "So you could surrender to them?"

He isn't here to babysit Dean. Castiel's job has  _never_  been to babysit Dean, and he isn't going to run after Dean playing chase when they're risking the end of the world. Castiel is here to  _save_  the world, and Dean better damn well help him before this kind of violence becomes a regular thing.

Castiel punches Dean again, feels the crunch of their bones grind against each other. Dean is sad and hurt, and he thinks he's just going to give in because he might be able to save his half-brother who he barely knows and  _maybe_  a couple thousand more people than Lucifer would ever leave alive? It's so fucking human and so fucking like a  _Winchester_ , and Castiel isn't dealing with this shit anymore.

"Cas, please," Dean grunts, and Castiel just swings him around again. He's just a human who thinks he can demean an Angel of the Lord down to a  _nickname_. If he wants to do that, Dean better damn well fight for it; he better stand up and fight, and stop acting like all the world is sitting on his shoulders now. It's not—Castiel carries part of it with him, as does Sam, and Bobby, and every other goddamn person who's ever assisted him.

"I gave  _everything_  for you," Castiel growls, right in Dean's face as he cringes away, and Castiel is  _glad_  that he's finally striking some fear into Dean. He should be scared of Castiel—he has more power than Dean could ever imagine, and he will do anything to make sure that this world stays in one piece, even if it means that Dean has to suffer for it. "And this is what you give to me?"

He gets one last look of complete and utter terror taking over Dean's face before Castiel kicks him away into a fence. God, does he even understand what Castiel has given up? He has lost everything in this war; he wrote the fucking book on what it's like to feel hopeless when the world is crashing down around you. Dean doesn't have a single fucking clue what this is like—his family rallied with him and he never once had to choose to give them up.

Dean coughs blood up onto the ground, one of his eyes already swollen half shut. "Do it," he says, jaw shaking with the effort it takes for him to speak. "Just do it!"

Castiel stares at him. He knows exactly what Dean's talking about—Dean is waiting for Castiel to send him back to Hell, just like he's been threatening to do all along. Slowly, though, his fist unclenches as Dean struggles for breath, and Dean's face screws up in grief and finality as Castiel reaches for him. He expects to wake up in Hell on the rack, his skin flayed open and his eyeballs already missing from their sockets, but that isn't what this is about.

Castiel is by no means proud of what he's done here. He feels better though, in a visceral, base way as he stares at Dean's crumpled body on the ground, blood drying on his knuckles to remind Castiel of who he's hurt.

Dean isn't going to wake up from this and suddenly have a change of heart, and Castiel is done believing that he will.

\---

"Whoa, whoa, wait, Cas, hold on," Dean says, yanking the box cutter out of Castiel's hand before he begins unbuttoning his shirt. "You can't just—"

"Can't  _what_ , Dean?" Castiel snaps, irritation growing.

Dean gapes at him. "What the hell are you doing with that?"

"I'm going to carve the sigil you banished me with into my chest," Castiel bites out, "and use it to get rid of the angels. It should buy you enough time to get Adam out of there while Michael comes for you once you say yes."

"He's not—" Sam cuts in, but Castiel turns on him, fury swelling in his eyes.

"If I hadn't found him on the side of the road with that preacher," Castiel hisses, "he already would have. I'm glad you believe in him, Sam, but your faith is wrongly placed."

Sam looks between Dean and Castiel, his mouth working even as no words come out.

"Cas," Dean says, voice cracking. "Look, can you just." He grabs Castiel's sleeve and pulls him away, far enough that Sam can't hear them anymore. Castiel watches the way Dean won't look directly at him, and he's not sure if it's because Dean is scared of him now or if he knows Castiel is telling the truth.

"You can't make this choice for me," Castiel says evenly. "I am going to walk in there no matter what you do or say, and I am not favored to walk back out."

Dean swallows and nods, hands tucked back into the pockets of his coat. He looks so small right now, as if he's just a child in a grown man's body with a choice in front of him that he's not ready to make. "For what it's worth, Cas," he says, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Castiel asks hollowly. "For saying yes? For giving up? Or for making me believe that we could win, and now you're deciding to give in and say yes?"

Dean visibly winces, and Castiel can't even feel apologetic that he pulled such a low blow. "I'm sorry it had to be this way," he says, shrugging a little. "I know it's not how you wanted it to end, but we tried, right? We gave it—"

"Don't," Castiel says through his teeth. "Don't try to pretend this is better than it is." Dean looks at the ground guiltily.

"Look, Cas," he says. "There's no better way, okay? There isn't another option here. It's me or Adam, and at least if it's me, Adam doesn't ever have to suffer."

"You are the stupidest human I have ever met," Castiel says. Dean's eyes grow round with shock, and Castiel snorts with derision. "Don't give me your self-sacrificing shit, Dean. There are a lot of things you just shouldn't do right now, and yet you're still doing all of them."

"Hey—" Dean tries to say, but Castiel is having  _none of this shit_.

"Be quiet and listen, for once," Castiel says as his mind starts to hurt from all the circles this conversation is taking. "You're not just throwing your life away, Dean. Half of the planet is going to die because you can't hold on for two more weeks while we figure something out."

"Power of love ain't working out," Dean says, standing by his earlier words. "And if it's going to happen anyway, I should—"

"The 'power of love,' as you put it, is the reason I am on your side at all," Castiel snaps. "If love is powerful enough to make an angel turn his back on Heaven, then it's  _more_  than enough to kill the devil. Not even Lucifer fell that far. He is still set on our Father's plan."

Dean mutters something indecipherable, his face stony.

"What?" Castiel sighs.

"I  _said_ ," Dean says, irritation making his cheeks flush, "fine, but it can't be that powerful if I'm still going to say yes."

Castiel takes a moment to understand what exactly Dean is trying to say here, but when he does, he surprises himself by laughing darkly. "You would choose now," he says, shaking his head and marveling, because after all this time, Dean still has surprises. He can still spit out a careless sentence and tell Castiel exactly how much he loves him.

"No better time for it," Dean says, pulling a knife out of his coat. "You need any help with that sigil? Knife probably cuts better than a box cutter, I gotta say."

The mood is lighter, more relaxed than it was before, and Castiel can't fathom what Dean did to make it that way, but he suspects it has something to do with the warm feeling in his chest that refuses to be tamped down. Love is reckless as it is strange.

Silently, Castiel moves forward until Dean backs up, and he goes until Dean is pressed between the wall of the building and Castiel's chest. "You, Dean Winchester," he says, "are terribly peculiar." He touches Dean's cheek lightly—Castiel still can't believe Dean will let him get this close. "We have no faith in each other and yet...here we are."

"You gonna kiss me or not?" Dean asks, breathless, and Castiel dives in without a thought to Sam or Heaven or the fucking Apocalypse.

Kissing Dean is like coming home every time. His mouth always feels like Heaven's highest blessing as their faces scrape and slide together warmly, wetly. Dean sighs into it, his hands gripping Castiel's waist with the strangest tenderness, and Castiel rubs his thumb gently across the scrape he left on Dean's cheek, pressing into it just enough that Dean grunts and tightens his hold on Castiel.

He doesn't know how long they stand there kissing—Castiel always tends to lose track with Dean—but he eventually has to pull away and get on with it.

"You'll cut it for me?" Castiel asks quietly, right in Dean's face.

Dean closes his eyes briefly as if it pains him to hear that question. "Yeah," he says. "Of course."

The sensation of a knife in his body doesn't hurt as Castiel expected. It's pressure and concentration as he holds his grace back from immediately healing the wounds, and blood oozes out just enough to make the cuts turn red.

Dean buttons his shirt up after it's done, jaw tight. He's refusing to look at Castiel again, his eyes slipping somewhere off to the side as he says, "Let's roll."

Castiel nods

Sam looks mildly annoyed that they kept him waiting for so long, and he gives Dean a very unsubtle significant look that Castiel probably wasn't supposed to see, but that's of no concern right now. He's more occupied with the immediate future, because facing death is different the second time around, now that he knows what to expect.

"When it's done, get to Adam as soon as possible," Castiel says flatly just before he opens the door. "The angels won't be gone forever, and they will come back even quicker once they realize I was there."

"Of course, Cas," Sam says. Dean just nods. He's hardly contradicted anything Cas is doing—does he even care anymore?

Fuck, Castiel just wishes Dean would fight for something.

\---

Castiel doesn't really expect anything in particular to happen when he presses a hand to the sigil engraved on his chest—there's no precedent for this. It feels like when Rahab carved sigils into his grace and set them on fire, how they push and pull Castiel's grace apart, and even the scars still etched in him flare painfully when he activates the one on his chest. He bounces around, unable to stay in one place because the thing he's banished from is himself, but he can't separate from that.

He's almost certain he's going to die from it, but for some miraculous reason, he wakes up again on top of the mountain he likes to frequent, flat on his back with the feeling of being watched sinking in slowly over him.

"Castiel," someone says, and Castiel hauls his body up to face the intruder, despite the fact that he can hardly stand, he's so weak.

"Gabriel," he says, relief coursing through him as he steps backward to steady himself. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving your sorry ass," Gabriel says, hopping off the rock he was seated on to push Castiel back to the ground. "Do you know how hard it is to trap an angel in his own head so he doesn't kill himself? What the hell were you thinking, using one of those things on yourself? Wait, don't tell me, I can guess—Dean Winchester said it was a good idea and you believed him."

Castiel frowns at him. "It was the best use of our resources," he says stubbornly, sitting on the ground, undignified as Gabriel looks at his wings.

"Cas, bro, you're about their only resource," Gabriel says, running his hands over a crushed part of Castiel's wing to heal it.

Castiel hesitates, wincing at the sharp snap of healing, and then he says, "Dean was going to say yes to Michael. I did not want to be around for that."

Gabriel snorts. "Well, if it helps, you idiot, he didn't. Pulled a good one on Zachariah with what I assume was your blade, but Dean-o's unfortunately still kicking. Trust me, I've tried to off the guy, and it's practically impossible. Michael took that other kid, Adam, instead."

"He said no?" Castiel repeats, still caught on that part as his mind tries to work out how that could have happened.

"Jesus, that sigil crap didn't do your head any favors, did it?" Gabriel says, laughing at Castiel as he settles himself on the ground alongside him. "You'll live, by the way, but I can't imagine much of your grace will be left when we get you back to Earth."

"Gabriel," Castiel says, demanding, "are you certain that Dean said no to Michael?"

"Uh, considering that the morons are still running around right now with a bunch of Pagan gods? I'd say yeah, both of them are pretty much in control of themselves," Gabriel says, shaking his head and sighing. "It's a wonder they're still alive at this rate." At Castiel's look, Gabriel rolls his eyes. "Don't worry, I'll go get them. After they figure out what's going on, of course. They won't believe me otherwise."

Castiel has to agree with that, still partly in shock. Dean said  _no_. Of all the things in the world that Castiel imagined coming out of that encounter at the Green Room, Dean saying no was never one of them.

"So Sam and Dean are..." Castiel asks, just to clarify.

"Alive, not possessed by archangels, and about to be used as bait for Lucifer," Gabriel says, nodding succinctly. "Your body's in a human hospital, brain-dead and not likely to wake up anytime soon until your mind gets its shit back together. I'd say it's going well."

Castiel sighs at that. "I don't understand what you mean by  _well_ ," he says, stretching his wings stiffly and popping a few joints back into place. Never again is Castiel carving a sigil into himself and using it to take on five angels, because that is excessive shit.

"Give them an hour," Gabriel says, "and I'll turn up to save their sorry asses." He folds his hands neatly in his lap and stares off into the dark horizon spread out before them, not even laced with stars because of the clouds rolling in over the mountains. "By the way, Cassy, I should thank you. For looking so forlorn, you know, that I actually decided to pick a side in this fight."

"You chose us?" Castiel says, hope fluttering in him wildly as it hits him, what this means, exactly. An archangel is an archangel—having one on their side isn't just a leg up over the competition; it's a fucking trump card.

"Unfortunately, yes," Gabriel says. "It's suicide, but if Michael and Lucifer get their way, I'm going to die anyway."

"The humans are worth it," Castiel says, grasping Gabriel's shoulder in his hand and holding on.

Laughing, Gabriel agrees, saying, "They are more than worth it. I haven't spent the last six thousand years in their presence because I wanted to kill them all." He pauses and turns solemn, catching Castiel's eye with his and holding him there. "I probably won't come back," he says quietly. "Well." Gabriel chuckles to himself. "I know I won't come back." He glances over at Castiel, his eyes warm and sad. "I've seen two different futures, Castiel—one where I help you and one where I don't, and I am alive in neither one. Lucifer will always kill me."

Castiel flinches, unable to curb his reaction to the thought of his brothers turning on each other like that, because it isn't right for angels to destroy each other like that. Even Castiel aches with the thought of each of his brothers that he kills, but to hear Gabriel mention it in such a cavalier, resigned fashion is even more painful and shocking.

"I'm sorry," Gabriel says when Castiel stays silent.

"Everyone apologizes to me," Castiel says. "I would rather they fight harder for their lives instead of give in and ask for forgiveness."

"There are some things in the world that you can't change," Gabriel says, shrugging to himself. "I haven't had a bad life, Cas. And if it's my time, well, I'm gonna go out swinging."

Castiel tilts his head back to look up at the starless sky. It's wide and vast as much as it is dark and empty, and Castiel thinks it became just that much more worse when he found out there really was no bright, shining Father waiting to be found so He could answer Castiel's pleas for help. The idea of the world without Gabriel is just as dark, and Castiel has lost far too many brothers to this war already.

"I have one more thing," Gabriel says, and he reaches into the pocket of his vessel's coat, drawing out a shining ball and cupping it in his hand. Squinting, Castiel frowns—something about it is familiar.

"Your memories," Gabriel says, taking Castiel's hand and pressing the light into the palm of it. "I stole them out of Heaven. Horrible security; they really should look into that."

"Memories?" Castiel asks as his mind flickers back to something Gabriel said to him the last time they met.

Gabriel nods. "I went back and watched them all, after I talked to you. They're all the proof in the world that you need as to why helping the Winchesters is the right thing to do, Cassy, and I don't want you to forget that. I'll make those damn humans prove themselves before I join them, but I know Heaven's as fucked up as Hell, and we don't need any of that in charge here on Earth."

Embarrassingly, Castiel squeezes his eyes shut against the unfamiliar prickling in them, wet and angry. "This is the reason why I fought for Heaven," he says, hand clenching around the memories. "This is why I thought they were right."

"Yeah." Gabriel watches him, eyes glinting in the light of Castiel's memories, and he says, "Take them back, Cas. They were never supposed to be anyone's but yours."

"Was this our Father's plan too?" Castiel asks, voice hoarse as his hands shake. "The memories?"

Face crumpling, Gabriel says, "I don't know. I don't know if—if it's supposed to be as fucked up as it is, Cas, or if it was supposed to be simpler than this. We don't know. God never talked to us about his grand plan, and he's only gotten quieter. For all I know, you were supposed to fall and become—like this." He waves his hand in Castiel's direction, and Castiel knows what he means. Flawed, nearly human, broken. Nothing an angel should be, but everything that Castiel is.

"We'll never know," Castiel says, and it isn't a question. That's just how it has to be.

"Take your memories back," Gabriel advises, "and when you wake up at that hospital, call Dean. He'll make sure you don't accidentally kill yourself when you turn human."

"Goodbye, Gabriel," Castiel says, watching as his brother spreads his wings one last time.

"See ya, Cassy."

Castiel closes his eyes just before Gabriel leaves and presses the memories straight through his chest into his grace. He needs every scrap of reassurance he can get.


	16. Runaways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W o w. Okay. It has been a while. Allow me to explain: You know that one woman with a newborn baby who, if you so much as mention pregnancy, will tell you every single gruesome tmi detail about exactly how much the birth sucked and which way the baby's head got all misshapen? Those details all apply to this chapter. It did not fucking want to come out, and I give my absolute sincerest apologies that it's so friggen late, but I'm glad I took my time with it instead of forcing something out that didn't feel right. And now...I'm quite proud of it. Most of it. The work I put into this chapter probably exceeds the work put into any other chapter in this fic so far, and I think it paid off. So. Hopefully you haven't forgotten me, and thanks so much to everyone who reads this!

Dean doesn’t mean to think about it—he’s actually been doing a very good job of _not_ thinking about it, especially with Crowley in the passenger seat of the Impala and Sam miles behind them in a dump of a building. He’s gonna be pissed when Dean gets back, but it’s not like they have time to look for other options, and Dean is more interested in killing the devil than making sure Sam is one hundred ten percent okay with everything Dean does. If Crowley says this is the way it has to go down, then Dean will damn well make sure it happens that way.

But the point is, Dean is ignoring it. He ignores it all the way up until the part when Crowley’s snarking off about something, probably complaining about Dean’s baby as they’re driving through a town. Dean pulls up to a stop sign and makes a left while he ignores Crowley and the _thing_ , and he sees a man in a trench coat out of the corner of his vision.

Dean violently overcorrects as he straightens the car, starting as he looks back. It’s not a man in a tan trench coat at all—it’s a woman in jeans and a jacket that could possibly be described as light brown, and Crowley shouts at him when he nearly bashes the car into something.

“It’s not that I’m opposed to destroying small children, but do you think you could save it for your bloody precious time with your brother?” Crowley snaps, glaring at Dean and clutching at the door handle in an overly dramatic fashion.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dean snarls, casting one last look in the rearview mirror to make sure. It’s still just a lonely woman on a street corner waiting for her turn to cross the road.

He has to pointedly remind himself that Cas is dead, but that doesn’t—make it any easier. It just reminds him that, yeah, that guy he’s in love with? Went on a suicide mission for Dean because Dean wasn’t worth believing in anymore.

Dean feels like he’s lost himself, and that’s when he fucking _gets it_.

He went to Heaven; he saw Mary there. Cupids or no cupids, Dean knows that love isn’t perfect, that it sometimes means fights and feeling alone and abandoned because that’s what love does to people, and he doesn’t know _why_ he thought it would be any different for him. Just because he and Cas have all these fucking issues doesn’t mean they aren’t worth anything, and Dean thinks that maybe Cas thought it meant exactly that. They had too many issues and that meant it wasn’t worth it to continue on, so he ran away as fast as he could.

Dean tightens his hand on the steering wheel, clenches his jaw, and he believes, just for a moment, that Cas will come back to him. He’s come back before; he’s dragged Dean up from the pits of Hell, and there’s no goddamn reason for him to think he can stay dead now.

But he’s still dead—he doesn’t just _appear_ in the back seat. And Dean recognizes in himself the fire that his dad had, the one that said he would go to the end of the world for Mary, and Dean knows he will see this all the way to the end for Castiel. That’s what Winchesters do when they’re in love—they go crazy with it.

Fuck, he is in so far over his head it’s fucking ridiculous.

\---

“You see, Brady,” Dean says, watching Sam, “we're the ones you should be afraid of.”

He wonders what Cas would think of him now, letting Crowley walk free and setting Sam in a fucking _fighting ring_ with another demon, as if they have any more right than the angels do to decide who lives or dies and how it all goes down. They really don’t, is the thing, but they’re only trying to be better than Heaven just enough that they keep the planet alive. Dean isn’t in charge of things like morals. He’s doing the damn best that he can without throwing his hands up in the air and damning the whole affair, because those are the only options he has left.

Hell, it’s cathartic to finally get to beat the thing that beat you, Dean knows. Despite how it makes him shiver, he knows what it was like for him to turn the knife back around on Alastair, to cut into his skin and pour salt down his throat, and it was strangely _good_. It destroyed him, utterly fucking wrecked him, but Dean didn’t lose everything there. He stayed sane, he stayed himself, and Sam isn’t any different.

Brady doesn’t get it, is the interesting part. Salt and a brick wall fence him in, and he still thinks there’s a way out of this. No one suspects the Winchesters, these two weak humans, to be able to find them and skin them alive, but that’s what Sam and Dean do—they save people and they hunt things, and the hunting part means that someone has to die. They grew up like this, and that’s why murder feels good. It’s ugly and it releases them, and Cas would approve, maybe, the way Sam’s shoulders look lighter when he walks to the Impala and gets inside. A smile twists Dean’s face—it probably looks more like a grimace, to be honest, but he doesn’t care.

“You good, then?” Dean asks twenty miles down the road, his baby’s engine rumbling to the tune of sixty-seven miles an hour, and Sam actually fucking laughs.

“You spend—how many years, thinking that you know a person,” he says, shaking his head and watching the side of the road. “And then it turns out you just really fucking don’t. It’s.” Sam snorts. “It’s something else, man.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, glancing out his window and nodding. “Yeah, I get that.”

Sam says, “Do you ever think about what our lives would be like if dad never got into hunting?”

“Sometimes.”

“Ever think it would be easier?”

“Hell, Sam, I don’t know,” Dean says, because what the fuck kind of question is that? “Everyone’s got shit—it’s ain’t ever _easy_.”

“Yeah, but,” Sam says. He looks and sounds like he’s working himself up to say something that he knows Dean isn’t going to like. “If we never knew—about any of this. I’d be in Palo Alto still, and I wouldn’t know what to do when I started having visions, y’know? And when Lucifer came knocking, I mean, wouldn’t it be easier for me to say yes, if I didn’t know what I was agreeing to?”

Dean takes a second to imagine that, the not knowing anything about demons and angels, and he knows that the prospect of an Angel of the Lord asking him to say yes so they could save the world would have been too strong.

“But we do know,” Dean says, because the answer to Sam’s question is obvious. “And we know we have to say no.”

“Why’s it gotta be us, then?” Sam snaps, slapping a hand down on the seat. “Was there some sort of fucking lottery that we won and I missed it?”

“Man, I don’t know,” Dean says, glaring at Sam. “I didn’t make the goddamn rules.”

“Whatever.”

Sam sulks for ages after that. They’re going in the vaguest direction of Pestilence that Dean can come up with when he hasn’t seen a road sign in a half an hour, and he only tries to turn the music on three times before he gives up and lets Sam have his peace and quiet. It’s not worth the bitching that will ensue if Dean tries to keep the noise in the car all the way up so he doesn’t have to hear himself think.

Dean contemplates pulling over for burgers when they pass a diner with a sign that says it’s open all night, but the thought of eating right now makes his stomach turn unpleasantly, so he presses the pedal down harder with his foot and keeps driving.

Near dawn, Sam sighs explosively. “So what about you?” he asks, crossing his ankle over his knee casually like he hasn’t spent the entire night silently fuming and cursing every damn person in the world.

“What about me?” Dean echoes, side-eying Sam suspiciously.

“The whole thing with Cas,” Sam says, and oh _god_ , those are the fucking eyes that Sam is looking at him with, and Dean has to shut this down _fast_ before someone starts crying manly tears or something. “I mean—”

“He’s dead, Sam,” Dean cuts in, blowing past a stop sign on a crossroad.

“You don’t know that,” Sam says, earnest and caring now that it’s not his friend he killed.

“If he hasn’t come back by now to tell us he’s good, he’s dead,” Dean says, glaring at Sam. “And that’s the end of it.”

“So, what, we’re just gonna go get Pestilence and Death and forget about Cas?” Sam argues, staring at Dean as if he’s never seen him before. “Dude, you gotta—”

“What the hell else am I supposed to do, Sam?” Dean snaps, jerking the Impala around a corner. “He’s gone and I can’t fucking bring him back, not this time. So leave it alone.”

Sam nods in that bitchy way of his he does, tightening his jaw and looking away, and he says, “Fine. Alright, then.”

“Good,” Dean says. Good.

\---

Dean isn’t expecting a miracle. He _really_ isn’t expecting the irony, as Pestilence rants about how disease is driven and single-minded, because if Dean has ever met something with a sole, solitary purpose, it’s the angels. And Castiel, however human he might be right now, stumbling around without his grace or his wings, is an angel, and he has set his mind on defeating Lucifer. Pestilence is in his way of that.

Pestilence doesn’t quite get that, because all he sees is a broken creature.

And that’s the funny thing about angels. Fallen or not, they really are lethal when they’re so concentrated on one thing that they can’t see beyond that. Even though Cas looks like he’s been run over by a truck, he slices off Pestilence’s finger with the same sort of efficiency Dean has seen him use against a roomful of demons.

He barely catches what Pestilence says to Cas before he nearly flies out of the room to get away from them, and Dean climbs slowly to his feet, using the way to steady himself as he watches Cas pull the ring from Pestilence’s severed finger, distaste clear on his face as he flicks the finger away. It’s strangely human and inhuman all at once, and when he looks at Dean, his eyes are duller than they’ve ever been.

It’s because his grace is gone, Dean realizes as he looks at the way Cas’ shoulders are slumped and the skin under his eyes is dark, and he offers him a weak smile. It’s good to see him—different now that Cas has really made it here and isn’t just theoretically alive. Dean almost doesn’t believe he’s here, not until Cas limps over to him and lays his hand on Dean’s shoulder gently, right over the mark he has on Dean’s soul, and Dean has to let out an instinctive breath as he feels calm sink into him. Cas is _alive_.

“You guys ready to go?” Sam asks, breaking into the little bit of peace Dean has found here.

“I—yeah,” Dean says, straightening up slowly. “We should go before any demons come looking for us.” He takes one last look at Cas, gazing at him long and hard as Dean reassures himself that, _yeah_ , Cas is really here.

They’re going to have to talk later. Later, when they get time, they have things that need to be said, and Dean doesn’t want to say them. He doesn’t want to deal with the fact that he said— _things_ to Cas when he thought he was going to become Michael’s vessel and Cas was going to die.

The whole drive to Bobby’s is tense as hell, and Dean thinks, really, the only things they have left to face is Death and Lucifer. Practically cake.

\---

Does it really matter what Dean loses? If he loses this war or if he loses his brother, the whole damn world’s over either way. Michael’s got a vessel. Lucifer’s gonna have a vessel, so long as Sam says yes, and there’s not exactly a lot of wiggle room for possible outcomes if it turns out Sam _can’t_ overpower the devil and toss him back in the pit.

He doesn’t say that to Bobby. Instead, he goes into the kitchen, pulls out a bottle of whiskey, and waits for Sam and Bobby to fall asleep somewhere. Cas watches him mournfully the whole time, perched in the corner with a book as he pretends to be looking for a way out of this without losing Sam, and Dean scowls at him every time he catches him looking. Until Bobby’s out, he’s not saying anything, because the last thing Dean needs is another lecture.

The only problem with that plan is that it means Dean is only working himself into a weird, half-drunken panic, because he runs out of whiskey rather quickly and doesn’t feel like standing up to get more. Three in the morning, though, Cas is still staring, and Bobby finally leaves to do whatever he needs to do.

Dean throws himself off the couch, stalking past Castiel to go to the kitchen finally, and he throws open the cupboard with an unnecessarily loud bang. No alcohol there, so the next one is—

“You shouldn’t be drinking tonight,” Castiel says, and Dean slams his fist on the counter when the second cupboard is empty.

“How can you be okay with this plan?” Dean hisses, whirling on Cas. “How can you be okay with Sam drowning himself in demon blood so he can go say yes to the devil?”

Cas frowns at him, as if _Dean_ has done something wrong. “I am not okay with it,” he says. “But I believe we are almost out of options, Dean. We have the means to open Lucifer’s cage, but that doesn’t matter if we have no way to get him into it.”

“There has to be—something,” Dean says, glancing wildly around as if that _thing_ will just pop up of thin air. His hands are shaking and his breath is short, and Dean hasn’t had a real panic attack since he was a teenager, but he sure as hell has all the symptoms of onset as his stomach clenches uneasily. “There has to be something in all these goddamn books, Cas, it’s—”

“Dean.”

Hands pull Dean backwards, away from the pile of books on the counter they’ve all read twice, pushing him down onto the couch again. Dean goes willingly, unable to process anything else. Cas is stronger than he probably should be, now that he’s human, but part of Dean adores being manhandled like this so he doesn’t have to choose to calm down. He loves the way Cas whispers, “Breathe for me,” as he leans down to look straight into Dean’s eyes and how his hand rests softly at the base of Dean’s neck, thumb brushing carefully over the hollow of his throat.

“Can you breathe for me, Dean?”

Dean nods, gasping out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding, and Cas presses their foreheads together as the panic slowly begins to fade from Dean’s mind. He doesn’t feel drunk anymore. Closing his eyes, Dean counts his breaths until they slow down to match Cas’, and he keeps it that way even when Cas folds his knees until he’s kneeling on the ground between Dean’s legs, pad of his thumb resting at Dean’s pulse point.

Swallowing, Dean licks his lips. His whole mouth is dry. “I’m glad you didn’t die, Cas,” he murmurs so quietly that he’s not sure he actually says it as his hands curl into fists on top of his knees.

“There’s still time yet,” Castiel tells him. It’s probably supposed to be a joke, but he says it so deadpan that Dean believes him for a minute, and he firmly traps the sob rising in his chest. “I am...glad to not be dead,” Cas adds hesitantly. “I’m also glad that you did not say yes to Michael.”

Nodding, Dean slides his hand forward until his knuckles are brushing Castiel’s side through his trench coat. He still refuses to open his eyes. “You mentioned that. On the phone.”

“I believe it is important to say it in person, though I do not fully understand the urge,” Cas says. “It is one of your human characteristics I have acquired.”

“But you still wish you were an angel,” Dean says. He can feel his heartbeat on his tongue, and it’s a strange sensation that makes the back of his throat feel too small to say words.

“Naturally,” Castiel says. “But we all make sacrifices during war.”

“But now you’re—you’re like us,” Dean says. “You’re _nothing_ , Cas.” His eyes open and he stares right at Castiel. Cas’ gaze is diminished; Dean can’t find the same terrifying holy fire he used to see in there, and he feels the loss of it keenly, like a punch in the gut, because he did this. He dragged Cas down from Heaven, gave him reason to fall, and now—

“Stop,” Castiel growls, grasping Dean’s jaw firmly in his hand. “Stop telling me what I am and am not, Dean. All of my choices have been my own.”

Silence falls. Dean presses his forehead closer until their noses brush just enough that Dean’s twitches at the too-soft feeling of it. He concentrates on the sound of Castiel’s breathing, the way his breath moves softly across Dean’s lips, and Dean never thought about if Cas _had_ to breathe before, but it’s probably a necessity now, the same way a washer and drier will be required to keep his awful trench coat clean. Dean remembers that Cas he saw in the future, the one who was hardly Cas at all, and he wonders how long it was before that Castiel dropped his coat in the trash the same way Dean got rid of the amulet Sam gave him.

“How much power did you have up there, anyway?” he asks when his mind is calm.

“It was endless,” Castiel says after a beat, hand relaxing and sliding down Dean’s neck as his eyes glaze over in remembrance. “All of the soldiers had only part of it, of course, but the wealth was endless. I could always feel it.”

“Did you—I mean, did they just let you have at it then?” Dean says. “When you rescued me from Hell, did they let you have all of it?”

A wry smile twists Cas’ face. “There was no access to Heaven from Hell. When I fought through to you, I did it without them. There was no Heaven behind me, simply an army of angels all in their own power, and we destroyed everything between you and us.”

“You never thought that was reckless?” Dean says, mouth twisting into a grin of its own accord.

“It was incredibly reckless,” Castiel says gravely. “But it was a risk we were determined to take. Heaven wanted you back, and so we took you.”

“Ever wish I had just stayed down there so none of this ever happened?”

Cas chokes on his breath and he says, “ _Dean_ ,” in the most broken way Dean has ever heard, and then he’s pushing Dean back, climbing up until he has one knee planted firmly on either side of Dean’s thighs. “I don’t know how you manage to be the stupidest man I’ve ever met and still remain as bright as you are.”

Dean blinks. “Uh, thanks, Cas. Really.”

“Shut up,” Cas snaps at him. “You don’t understand—the world would have continued down this path whether you were here to stop it or not. Sam and Lilith were both on their ways as soon as you broke in Hell. We have a poor defense, but at least we have one.”

“Cas, we have a guy who sold his soul, a mojoless angel, and a goddamn plan to say yes to the devil,” Dean argues, slapping his hand on Castiel’s thigh. “That isn’t a fucking defense, it’s a suicide mission.”

“I would have simplified to insouciant,” Cas says, nodding to himself. “But suicide mission works.”

“Don’t say that word,” Dean mutters, thumping his head against the back of the couch. “Just...any other word but that one.”

“Reckless,” Cas says, and he leans forward until his head is pressed against Dean’s collarbone. “Impulsive. Overconfident. Take your pick, Dean; I have a whole list of synonyms in my head.”

“Don’t,” Dean says. His fingers have curled in the edges of Cas’ trench coat without his permission, but he doesn’t want to move them, not yet. “Just. I can’t think about this right now, Cas. Any of it.”

The whole thing with Sam, it’s—no matter what happens, if Dean lets him do this, Sam isn’t coming back. He will never come back because he will either be in Hell or he will be the devil, and that idea crowds up Dean’s mind, pressing all of his unpleasant thoughts right to the forefront, and it’s—it’s Sam, and Dean’s not going to be able to save him this time.

They sit like that for what feels like forever. Dean lets his mind drift and go blank, and he drinks in the weight and silence of Cas on top of him, how they fit like puzzle pieces whose colors don’t match but their sides do, and it’s only the mismatched look that tips you off about how they don’t belong together. Dean would be the grass and Castiel would be the sky, and they would touch even though the mountains stretched across the horizon between them.

“Come with me,” Cas says, withdrawing from the couch slowly. He pulls Dean up with him with a hand around his wrist, and he leads Dean through the house and up the stairs until they’re standing in front of the room Dean claims as his whenever he and Sam are around.

Moonlight falls through the window, turning the blue quilt silver and the pale green walls white, and Cas is only a shadow when he stands between Dean and the window. The edges of his hair shine white where the light reflects off it, and for the first time Dean wants to know what an angel’s halo looks like, if it’s a ring above their heads or just light shining from behind them. The idea of moonlight haloing his head makes Cas looks ethereal again, celestial, and Dean has the distinct impression that he’s really dealing with an Angel of the Lord, not just a fallen facsimile.

But Cas is still achingly human as he pushes Dean’s jacket off his shoulders, stripping his T-shirt over his head and kissing Dean like the world is ending tomorrow. Which. Yeah, it sort of is, isn’t it?

“Not fair,” Dean says weakly as Cas undoes his belt and pushes Dean’s pants and underwear to the ground. He doesn’t respond though, just kisses him again, licking his way into Dean’s mouth and sliding his hand through Dean’s hair, tangling his hands in it the best he can.

“I love thee with my whole heart,” Cas says against Dean’s mouth, pulling him in with an arm around his waist and lining their bodies together. He’s so warm, and Dean moans a little when Cas massages at the base of his spine, working out the knot in his muscles there as he breaks their kiss. He looks like he wants to say something, but he only starts removing his trench coat. Dean starts and jumps to help, but Cas bats his hands away and tells Dean to go lie down.

The sheets are cool against his back as Dean settles himself up against the pillows. He can’t quite believe they’re really doing this while the devil is breathing down their necks and Sam is sleeping right next door, but if it weren’t inconvenient, it wouldn’t be them. Dean closes his eyes and stretches his arms above his head. God, if Sam pulls this off, Dean is going to blow however much money he needs to in order to get at least two hot women to give him a full goddamn body massage so his back doesn’t hurt and his shoulders aren’t tense.

He tries not to get his hopes up.

“C’mon, Cas,” he says as Castiel kicks his socks off. He crosses the room to rummage through Dean’s bag, and he comes up with the bottle of lube Dean keeps at the very bottom of it. Setting it on the end table next to the bed, Cas climbs over Dean, and Dean drags him down until they’re skin to skin. It’s useless to pretend he isn’t exactly as desperate as he is, something burning in his stomach to let Cas in and keep him there, to live perfectly in this night always.

Cas is mumbling something under his breath, and Dean strains to hear him. “...that same holy fire which shall cause me to forget the world,” he says, bypassing Dean’s mouth completely to lick over Dean’s neck and gently bite down on the juncture of his neck and shoulder, “all things created, and even myse—”

“Are you praying?” Dean asks incredulously, and Castiel’s eyes flash as his head snaps up.

“Do not interrupt me,” he says, little growl rolling just underneath his words, and Dean flinches on instinct. He nods jerkily—no talking, that’s easy enough—and Cas leans into kiss him.

God, there’s something rough and uninhibited the way he does it now, teeth scraping at Dean’s lips, practically assaulting his mouth, and Dean loves it. He loves how Cas’ teeth close just too hard on his bottom lip, and he moans into it unashamedly, using his hands to crush Cas’ head ever closer to him. Dean could spend forever walking this little line of pain and pleasure, never quite balanced in the middle as Cas scratches his thumbnail over Dean’s nipple in a way that makes his entire spine arch upwards.

“Fuck,” Dean gasps as Cas backs off and lands his mouth on that same spot, lapping his tongue over the peak and tugging gently with his teeth, and Dean bites his own fist just to keep from shouting. “Fucking—Cas, _fuck_.”

Castiel makes his way slowly down Dean’s chest, murmuring a prayer into every new patch of skin his lips touch. Dean is going to be covered in bruises and bite marks tomorrow, and he doesn’t even care, not when Cas sucks viciously at a spot just beyond his hipbone that makes the whole world spin. He doesn’t think anyone’s paid this much attention to his body in his whole life, not the tender, thorough way Cas does it with his hands sliding everywhere and his mouth trailing wetly down his body, doing slow, dirty things with his tongue against every single damn freckle he can find.

It almost surprises him when Cas gets to his dick, as if Dean has become used to riding higher and higher on his wave of pleasure without ever thinking of the actual gratification, and it’s almost too much as Castiel plants chaste kisses all the way down to the base of his cock. Cas drags his tongue all the way back up and over the head, dipping into the slit as his hand follows in a torturously slow slide.

Dropping his head to lay it on Dean’s thigh, Cas looks up at him, hand stroking lazily over Dean’s cock. “Thou hast given me light and strength to abandon the paths of perdition,” he says solemnly. “I ask thee to grant me now light and grace to know the ways....”

His voice trails off, and before Dean can figure out what’s going on, he moans as Cas sucks the precome off the tip of Dean’s cock and murmurs, “Of salvation.”

Dean isn’t expecting it when Cas rolls him over, hands rough on Dean’s hips even as he whispers something reverent that Dean can’t hear. Cas covers his ass in little nips and licks, spreading Dean’s legs apart so the bow of them lets Cas’ shoulders in, and Dean’s drags a pillow forward to bite into to keep himself silent. He’s already quivering in anticipation, knows what’s coming next, and it’s this Cas, this loving, commanding Cas, who makes him ache in all the best ways. He knows that all Dean wants is to be held down and fucked slowly.

Not even Dean really knew he wanted that, not until Cas started taking it.

He’s waiting for it and it’s still a shock when Cas’ hands finally grab Dean’s ass and spread it open so he can get to his hole, and Dean moans into the pillow when Cas just stays there and fucking _breathes_ over him, and he can feel the fucking heat of it.

Dean is about two seconds away from turning around and telling Cas just to get fucking on with it when he feels the first flick of a tongue, and he bites harder into the pillow instead. Cas just goes to town with this, kissing and licking and even fucking _biting_ Dean’s hole, and Dean whines and spreads his legs wider. He hasn’t had this in—a long time, and he loves it, how Cas pulls back to look at Dean’s hole, leaving him uncomfortably on display even as Dean squirms to at least _attempt_ to keep some of his modesty. He doesn’t know why he bothers trying to hide.

Cas teases his finger across Dean’s hole, running across it just before his tongue does, and Dean cants his ass back, trying to push it inside him, but Cas just chuckles darkly and does it again. He presses his nail in just a little too hard against the rim, catching on the wrinkled skin, and Dean grunts at the pleasure-pain feeling of it. Christ, he wants this.

Dean almost misses the sound of Cas popping the lube open, but the fact that there’s no tongue in his ass anymore makes him pay more attention, and then Cas pushes a slick finger inside. He thrusts it in and out twice before he crooks it at the exact angle to hit Dean’s prostrate, and _fuck_ , Dean thought that was a freaky angel thing, but it turns out it’s just a Cas thing as he does it again, making Dean pant into his pillow.

The second finger feels more like an intrusion than the first one did, but Cas lays kisses on his lower back and massages Dean’s hip gently, and Dean relaxes to let him in. He’s almost overwhelmed—almost, but not quite, as Cas pulls himself up to lay with his mouth right next to Dean’s ear.

“I came to you late, O Beauty,” he says, twisting his fingers as he prays. Dean should find this blasphemous, but it’s actually just really, _really_ hot. “I have never known a soul like yours,” Castiel rasps as he pushes another finger inside Dean. “Not so bright or so wondrous, like some monster—” his words turn to a snarl, biting Dean’s ear roughly as Dean gasps into the air “—loose in this beautiful world.”

Cas pulls away entirely and Dean whines at the cool air along his back and the absence of something inside him, but Cas comes back to him almost immediately, urging Dean to roll back over. Dean hitches a knee up, tilting up his hips, and Cas moans lowly as he stares at the way it exposes his hole. “C’mon,” Dean whispers, licking his lips at the naked hunger in Cas’ face. “Please.”

Dean never quite remembers exactly how much he enjoys being fucked until he _is_ getting fucked, and then it’s almost too good, too overwhelming as Cas pushes into him, dropping kisses all over Dean’s face. He leans down over Dean, supported by just an elbow next to Dean’s head while his other hand holds Dean’s knee out of his way. The feeling is relentless and Dean feels helpless in the best possible way as he bucks his hips into it and whispers, “Faster, Cas, faster.”

But Cas doesn’t listen, not even a little. If anything, he pulls his hips back ever slower, mumbling something about splendor and light that Dean doesn’t care about half so much as he cares about the drag of Cas’ cock inside him.

It builds and it builds, and Cas never moves from that agonizingly sweet pace, even when Dean’s digs his heels as hard as he can into Cas’ back, practically sobbing into his fist with the need of it. He’s already riding this impossible high when Cas gets a hand around his dick and jerks it quickly, almost twice as fast as he fucks into Dean. God, there’s no rhythm to it at all, but Dean is so worked up now that he doesn’t care, and he comes hard, shooting all over Cas’ hand and his chest.

Cas’ face starts to draw up in that way Dean has learned means he’s about to come, and Dean shudders through the aftershocks of his own orgasm as he feels Castiel’s whole body tense up as he finally loses a little bit of control and slams into Dean one last time, coming hard inside him.

It’s funny, how neither of them says a word, but Dean can still feel Cas’ lips moving against his shoulder, and he feels a tear run land on his skin. He doesn’t understand until he lifts his head and looks at Cas, and he realizes that Cas has his hand gripped tightly over his mark on Dean, but Dean feels nothing. He searches for the spark, the warmth, but it’s—it’s all gone. Cas’ batteries are drained.

They’re all like that, trying to pretend they have something left to hold onto. But. There’s nothing left but the end of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be posted as soon as I get it done, which will hopefully be within a few days. It hasn't acted up like this one so far, so I'm hopeful. It's the last one, so fingers crossed. Thanks for reading!


	17. Born to Die

Castiel isn’t sure what he expected from this whole being human thing. He learns the pressing need of his bladder very quickly, and the harsh pain of hunger not so quickly. Dean teaches him all of it, even how to shave, because it gives him something else to focus on—something that isn’t Sam saying yes to Lucifer.

And when he and Dean have sex, it’s different. It’s not better or worse in any way other than Castiel likes it but isn’t certain what to make of it. It feels dirtier, slicker between their bodies and wetter when Castiel comes inside him. There’s the issue of the handprint, though, and Castiel knows it’s because he doesn’t have enough grace left to make the connection.

The look Dean gives him when he figures it out is full of pity.

The air feels different, too, but Castiel thinks that has more to do with the reality of the final battle looming over their heads. It makes electricity crackle in the air, dry and static, and it fills Castiel with a sharp longing for his home, for Heaven.

But the worst part is that Castiel is _powerless_. He is weak, physically of course, and mentally when he catches himself unable to remember how many freckles are on Dean’s left hand. Castiel has never had trouble knowing that before, not since he first counted them and started keeping track of the fluctuation in their numbers from season to season. It’s because his brain is becoming human, losing connections between neurons because that’s what human brains _do_ —they forget. Castiel has never forgotten anything that wasn’t stolen from him.

He quickly becomes obsessed with recounting the events of his life to himself, but it is too long and he is too old, and there is an entire chunk of time missing during the Jurassic Period—thousands of years, maybe, where Castiel has _nothing_. He makes it to the present day once, but when he goes back to do it over again, Castiel can no longer remember how the Earth began and the story started.

The memories from Gabriel still shine brightly, though. Castiel took those in after he became human, after he lost his grace, and they are embedded within this body the way his other memories were rooted within his grace. They have found room in his human mind.

Castiel has never felt this old before. Again and again, he replays the memories Heaven stole when losing the other ones becomes too much and he realizes it’s not a continuous length of time. They cut in and out, and some holes Castiel can still fill.

He walked with a human who had no name for twenty-three years, birth to death, long before the concept of a year was even thought of. Humans didn’t name themselves then, and once he died, Castiel spent three years singing praises in Heaven. He remembers the three years from before, but the twenty-three are new, spent with Balthazar because the humans they walked with had been each other’s mates. Dean Winchester’s distant ancestors, and it’s funny how his eyes have survived in his family line for that long.

Castiel used to be mesmerized by the color of his nameless human’s eyes—so green and bright and utterly unlike the muddy browns and grays Castiel was so used to. The first green-eyed man with a green soul to match, he thinks, and he wonders if his Father did that on purpose.

But now as he walks with a human—one who can speak and understand and grasp concepts that Castiel had never in his wildest imagination thought about—he is bound to the Earth. He is trapped. He doesn’t necessarily long to fly back to Heaven right at this moment, but the idea of not being able to even if he wanted to is heartbreaking.

Dean will be the last of his line, the final bright, pure green-eyed, green-souled boy. It’s only fitting he drag the angel who guarded him down too.

Because there are no more chances after this. Michael will take his vessel and the Earth or Lucifer will take his vessel and the Earth, but there will be nothing else left. Paradise for the winner and the whole human race gets fucked.

Castiel can hardly wait.

\---

Dean wakes up in the morning with a dead smile on his face. Castiel is already awake, watching him shamelessly from the other side of the bed. He’s recounting Dean’s freckles, though it’s frustrating because Dean moves frequently in his sleep and he keeps losing track of the number.

Possibly he’s at forty-six right now. It could just as easily be forty-three, and Castiel absolutely despises the inaccuracy of his number.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean says. His voice is rough with sleep and his eyes are only half-lidded, but Castiel can tell he’s faking the smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes, doesn’t make the corners of his eyes crinkle up in warmth, and it’s all wrong. Castiel doesn’t want to see it.

“Good morning,” he says instead. “Did you sleep well?”

Dean makes an ‘mrph’ sound and widens his eyes, stretching his arms out in front of him until they hit Castiel’s chest. “Yeah, actually,” he mumbles. “You?”

“Well,” Castiel says, even though it’s a complete lie. He slept for about two and a half hours in the very early hours of the morning, but his head has been plagued with thoughts and warnings ever since then.

“Good,” Dean says, and he closes his eyes briefly before he rolls off the bed, standing tall and stretching his arms up to the ceiling. His knees crack while Castiel’s eyes trail over him and Dean twists his back around and rotates his neck, and Castiel can’t believe there was ever a time when he had enough knowledge to put all of Dean’s body back together again.

Dean ducks into the bathroom across the hall without speaking again, a barely-there hitch in his steps that Castiel knows he put there, and he sighs as he stands up as well. He’ll probably need a shower and definitely cleaner clothes. In the meantime, Castiel brushes his teeth with Dean’s toothbrush because going to the store for toiletries hasn’t been the highest priority lately.

He hesitates for a moment after rinsing his mouth, watching the shower in the mirror. Dean is completely silent. Usually, he hums to himself and sometimes he even sings outright when he thinks he’s alone, and while his voice isn’t necessarily his best quality, Castiel can always read the emotion through the off-key notes.

The decision happens in a split second before Castiel can actively make a choice, and then he’s stripping off his flannel pants and pulling back the shower curtain. Dean’s just standing under the water, watching Castiel with lifeless eyes. He doesn’t move as Castiel draws their bodies together, Dean’s skin warm from the water but uninviting from his tears, and Castiel presses his thumbs against Dean’s cheekbones to wipe them dry.

“What happens next?” he asks, pulling Dean to him, closing the last few inches until his arms are around Dean’s waist and his feet are stepping between Dean’s legs, and he can feel the exact moment Dean stops resisting and melts into him. Castiel rests his chin on Dean’s shoulder.

“We get Sammy ready,” he says dully. “We need, what, demon blood? Bobby’ll have somethin’ for us. I’ll figure it out.”

He sounds so tired. It’s not strange or surprising, considering the man he’s holding in his arms is the one who’s felt the weight of the fate of the world for far too long. Letting go of that has to _ache_.

“ _We’ll_ figure it out,” Castiel corrects gently. He rubs at the base of Dean’s shoulder blade, pressing in and up against the knot there. In another life, he would lay Dean out in a different moonlit room and work every kink out of his body, head to toe, while they forgot about demons and demon blood and the whole damn apocalypse, but they don’t have the luxury of that world.

Castiel starts when Dean’s fingers slide into his hair, massaging his scalp rhythmically until Castiel realizes Dean is washing his hair. The smell of drugstore shampoo surrounds them, folding into the steam rising from the water, and Castiel sighs into it, tilting his head for a better angle.

He knows this is Dean’s way of saying goodbye.

\---

“Two demons, in a warehouse ’bout seventy-five miles west,” Bobby says again, pulling his hat off to wipe the sweat from his brow. “I can lead you boys there.”

“Warehouse, awesome,” Dean says, hefting his bag up higher on his shoulder. “Rufus said it should just be standard?”

Bobby nods. “Couple of low level demons, practically nothing compared to the shit we’ve been swingin’ at lately. He’s been doin’ recon on them, anyway, said they’re usually around in the afternoon, but they go out at nights.”

“Easy enough.” Dean glances sideways at Castiel as Bobby wanders back to his truck, cursing under his breath. “First hunt as a real live human,” he says. “Ready?”

Actually, Castiel will never be ready for the feeling of knowing that he could legitimately die on this hunt. If something goes wrong, if Rufus’s information is two shades off the truth, Castiel could be dying far sooner than planned, and he wants to spit in Dean’s direction that he’s never going to be ready. He has no power, just a shotgun Dean stuffed in his hands and told him not to shoot unless he absolutely needed to.

“Yes,” he answers instead, tongue thick in his mouth. “When are we leaving?”

“Now,” Sam says, slamming the trunk of the Impala shut. “We should be able to get enough, uh.” He pauses quickly and then promptly continues. “Well, we have enough jugs, I think. Just need to fill them.”

“Alright,” Dean says, pulling the keys out of his pocket. “You ready, Bobby?”

“Idjits better gimme a minute,” Bobby huffs, turning back to go into the house. Dean shrugs at his retreating figure and gets in the car anyway.

Castiel can’t even skip using the door.

Dean starts up the car and something blares out of the speakers at an ungodly level that makes Castiel flinch. Sam doesn’t bat an eye, just sighs and reaches to turn the volume down as Dean starts drumming on the steering wheel. He doesn’t sing along, though, just stares at the rusted truck in front of them.

The drive is tense. Castiel doesn’t know how else he could possibly describe it—Sam tries to make conversation a handful of times, both with Dean and Castiel, but Dean is unresponsive beyond a handful of grunts and Castiel just doesn’t know what differentiates a good car from a poor one. He can feel his muscles clenching up in the tension, but each time he makes a conscious attempt to relax, he forgets himself quickly and loses all of his progress.

The radio volume inches up, too, with each aborted attempt at conversation Sam makes, and before long, AC/DC is playing so loudly that Castiel is slightly afraid the speakers in the Impala will short out. Each guitar riff makes him jump, the bass lines make him quiver, and his head pounds in time to the drums, and Castiel is definitely learning the less exciting parts of being human as he digs his fingers harder and harder into his knee to keep himself from shouting at Dean to turn it the hell down.

Sam seems to notice, tossing him a sympathetic glance over the seat. Castiel suspects his scowl only deepens further, but he’s too busy bemoaning his ability to shut the noise out to care about Sam’s hurt feelings.

When Bobby signals to turn off the highway, Dean turns it off. Castiel bites his tongue to keep himself from swearing angrily, because the silence is so sudden and painful that he’s not sure that it’s any better.

“You got the knife, right?” Sam asks quietly.

Dean nods tightly, right hand brushing against the inside pocket of his jacket. “How many jugs did you bring?”

“Three.”

They glance back at Castiel together, perfectly synchronized now that they’re on a hunt. “You’re on the devil’s trap,” Dean says, looking back to the road. “We’ll figure out where to put it and me and Sam will get the demons into it. You good?”

“I am,” Castiel says. Useless, is what he is.

The building is nondescript, nothing more unusual than hundreds of other warehouses scattered across the American Midwest, except this one has demons. Castiel’s palms are sweating and adrenaline floods his veins, and it’s a miracle humans can get anything done when they’re flushed with chemicals like this. Castiel feels lightheaded, stomach roiling unpleasantly, and there’s a vague thought in the back of his head that he’s not very well protected here.

Dean hands him chalk once they stop. It’s his only weapon Castiel truly knows what to do with.

Face set grimly, Bobby nods at them from his truck as Sam grabs a shotgun and the jugs from the trunk, and Dean slams it shut. Even the damn car sounds despondent, as if she knows what Sam is about to do and doesn’t like it,

Sneaking into the main building is impossible as the door squeaks loudly in protest after Dean picks the lock, and it slams shut behind them when Castiel tries to leave it propped open. He receives two glares for his efforts, but at least the demons have been drawn out of hiding.

They move swiftly to somewhere in the middle, into an open room where Dean inspects the ceiling critically and looks at Sam for confirmation.

Dean gives Castiel his cue while Sam drops the jugs off to the side, taking the safety off his gun and propping the end up on his shoulder. His gaze travels around the room like a seasoned soldier’s, and Castiel spares half a second to be proud of the tiny garrison he’s fallen into. Powerful or not, they are deadly competent, and it slows his jumping heart and calms the stupid fears in the back of his head.

This is hardly the difficult part as Castiel marks a circle into the floor, connecting the points of his pentagram and going over all the lines against to make sure they are not broken.

He waits in the center while Sam and Dean sweep out to catch the demons. Castiel has to admit this part of the plan is almost foolproof—the demons cannot cross the line without being trapped, and should they cross it anyway, Castiel only has to step out. He doesn’t know what happens if there are two demons, though—perhaps he shouts for Dean and attempts to get off a shot from his gun. He isn’t worried.

It isn’t fifteen minutes until Dean is back, dragging one of the demons with him. Ruby’s knife is pressed to its throat as Dean growls into its ear, “Don’t move, I told you not to fucking move.”

Castiel steps back as Dean shoves it into the trap. The demon looks just like any other human would, except for the black eyes—Castiel cannot see the true form lurking just underneath the skin, and its last act is to snarl as Dean stabs it in the chest.

“You could have done that before you brought it here,” Castiel says as Dean drops the body to the floor.

“Easier to make it walk than carry it,” Dean says, shrugging. “You seen Sam?”

“No.”

Dean jerks his head back at the trap. “Back inside for you, then, until I find him.”

Castiel counts the seconds until they return. Twenty-one minutes or so because he loses track once or twice.

This demon doesn’t come quietly. It’s positively cackling in glee, heedless of Dean’s warnings. “—really, big boy, take me. It’s all going straight to him—I’ll do whatever part I can in this,” it says, mouth grinning so wide it looks like it might snap its whole face in half.

Sam is dead silent, shotgun still cocked over his shoulder. “How many times do I have to tell you to shut up?” Dean says, jerking the demon so the blade cuts into its neck.

“Shush, darling, the grownups are talking,” it says, patting Dean’s hand on its shoulder almost pleasantly. “How does it make you feel, Sammy, knowing you’re about to deliver salvation to the demons? Probably not so great since we got your mommy.”

“Shut up,” Sam grits out, jaw clenching.

“What’re you gonna do?” the demon says, laughing as Dean pushes it into the devil’s trap. Castiel steps out with no small amount of distaste. “Kill me? Baby, I’m happy to die for the cause, I mean, Lucifer’s gonna—”

Sam snaps, yanking Ruby’s knife out of Dean hand and stabbing the demon through the heart. It dies with a smile on its face, laughing in delight at Sam’s pain.

“Get the empty jugs,” Dean says quietly while Sam stares down at the body, and Castiel obeys without comment as Dean pulls chains down from the wall and helps Sam to tie the demons up by their feet.

Castiel soon understands why a warehouse is an optimal place for this. Sam steps over to a panel of switches on the side of the room, flicking at them until the chains rise into the air, lifting the demons upside down. Easy, then, as Dean pulls a knife out of his boot and Sam drops two large funnels into the openings of the jugs. They do one at a time, slitting the demon’s throats and positioning the jugs beneath when they see where the blood is dripping out, and Castiel has to marvel at the simplicity of the operation.

It’s clearly not the first time they’ve drained bodies, either, as Dean glances at his watch, sighs, and drags out a rusted metal folding chair to sit on until the jugs need to be exchanged for empty ones. Sam leans on the wall with his phone out, probably messaging Bobby to know the plan went off without a hitch.

Funny how there’s nothing like two dead bodies hanging from the ceiling to make Castiel feel like one of the family.

\---

“We’re doing this,” Dean says, so quietly that Castiel isn’t entirely sure he means to say it aloud. “He—we’re actually gonna say yes to the devil.”

Sam is behind the Impala, trunk flipped up so he can drink down his demon blood and pollute his body. Castiel is only glad that he can no longer smell the different between demon blood and any other kind.

“I thought you had gotten past this part already,” Castiel says, tucking his hands into the pockets of his coat.

Dean lets out a half-hysteric laugh, cutting himself off quickly before he can say anything too loudly. “How the fuck am I just supposed to get _past_ any of this?”

Castiel shrugs one shoulder. “I heard what Sam said to you in the car,” he admits, even as he wishes he had truly been sleeping through that whole conversation. “You leave the cage alone, you go to Lisa’s. Maybe you work past all of this or you don’t, but you learn how to keep living, Dean.”

“It’s not that easy,” Dean protests, but he’s looking at the ground and leaning back against the car as if he knows he’s already lost.

“No,” Castiel says. “It won’t be.”

He watches as Dean and Sam leave, and he thinks derisively to himself, _Take care of Dean and Bobby._ Sure, if Bobby wasn’t already closing off and Dean wasn’t about to snap in two again. Castiel doesn’t know if he can pick Dean back up this time—there are no virtues that teach you how to cope with your brother’s death, no quick fixes to get over the fact that he’s not really even dead, just trapped in hell forever. Castiel will do what he can, but he can’t spend forever keeping Dean’s wrists away from razor blades and his skull away from guns.

Castiel isn’t here to do a job anymore. He’s just trying to survive, same as everybody.

\---

Castiel isn’t exactly surprised when Sam fails to overpower Lucifer. If he’s honest, he never had much faith in that plan to begin with, but he supposes it’s much easier to resign himself to death now that he knows the Apocalypse will truly be carried out as God willed it. Dean seems—struck by the whole thing. He never quite wrapped his head around the idea of Sam losing the fight any more than he got around the fact that Sam could win the fight.

There is nothing left for either of them. Castiel is a human like Dean now, and when the time comes for Lucifer to meet Michael on the battlefield, he will die with the rest of the humans. It’s inevitable, really.

He watches the news with Dean and Bobby, the meager footage of disaster and distress that has made it onto the airwaves, and it’s so obvious—Lucifer is having _fun_ right now. He’s out and about and finally in a body that can contain him with ease, so now he’s playing with the world until he has to show up to fight Michael. Castiel thinks he used to do this back when he started to rebel and that’s why he knows what Lucifer is doing, but he can’t remember for sure anymore.

His mind is so broken, and he wants to drown himself in alcohol to get out of it. It always seems to work for Dean.

Bobby heads back to his truck after a bit, shoulders slumped and head down, and Castiel is left alone with Dean, staring into a store window watching the end of the world.

“There’s gotta be something we can do,” Dean mumbles again. “Cas, we can’t just let him go.”

“Dean, you promised you would let him go,” Castiel says, shifting closer to him. Dean glances the other way, away from Castiel and the televisions. “There is nothing else we can do now. It’s over. We’ve lost.”

Dean rounds on him. His face is tight with anger, hands shaking as if he wants to wrap them around Castiel’s throat and shake him, and the look he gives Castiel is full of so much despair that his fury almost looks like the last call of a broken man. “I don’t care how many times I have to sell my soul,” Dean spits, his eyes flashing with rage as he invades Castiel’s space. “I don’t care how many times I have to die or how many times I have to break in Hell—I will do whatever it takes to keep him safe. He—he is my _one fucking job_ , Cas. I’m not letting him go.”

“Taking care of Sam isn’t your only job, Dean,” Castiel says, taking a deliberate step back. “You are capable of—”

“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t get it,” Dean snarls at him. “You don’t take care of your brothers; you just dick them over.”

Castiel knows Dean doesn’t mean it, but it still hits him like a punch in the gut. Dean is angry and upset, but that doesn’t mean he has to right to say that to Castiel. He wants to shove Dean against the wall, put an arm across his throat and press down while he explains exactly why Dean is wrong and should back down _now_ before he loses his head, but Castiel—he’s too tired. He’s too fucking tired to even bother, so he just looks at Dean and refuses to answer. There’s nothing to say, not really.

Dean deflates. “Someone has to— _Chuck_.”

Castiel’s gaze snaps straight to Dean. “Chuck,” he repeats, the pieces falling into place. “Dean, no. Even if he did know, you can’t—”

“Sam’s there and Chuck will know where it is,” Dean says excitedly. “And—fuck, even if I can’t save him, I’m gonna be there for him, Cas, I _have_ to.”

Closing his eyes, Castiel takes a deep breath. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth as he says, “I can’t—Dean, I can’t be there with you. I won’t watch you die when I can’t do anything about it.”

Dean nods once, and then again as if to remind himself. Castiel still feels tired.

\---

“We should follow him,” Bobby says, staring at the road Dean disappeared on.

“We’ll be torn apart.”

“That ever mattered to you before?”

And—no, it really hasn’t.

\---

Castiel feels it the moment he dies, and this time the feeling of great hands all around him isn’t possibly a product of his imagination. It’s warm and alive and very much there, and Castiel breathes in the feeling of his Father’s love all around him. It’s nearly foreign, he hasn’t felt it in so long, but it’s just as strong and calming as it ever was.

Then there is light—there is light all around him, inside him, burning the scars off his true body and making him whole again, as if he never was taken apart beneath Rahab’s rage and pleasure. Everything is made right as Castiel’s grace, his power, flows back into him, setting his limbs to buzz with Heaven’s fury and roiling furiously under the skin of his vessel, and it feels like Castiel is breaking into the air and taking his first breath after too long underwater.

He’s not in Heaven when he opens his eyes. Well, it could be Heaven, but Castiel has spent enough time there to know that this, while beautiful, isn’t Heaven, and the man standing before him is holy and more than Castiel ever could have imagined.

“Castiel,” God says from the prophet Chuck’s mouth, smile soft and benign from where He stands under the shelter of an apple tree. He is clean-shaven and dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, free of stains, and in His hands he holds a bright red apple, surface so smooth it shines in the sunlight.

“Father,” Castiel breathes, Jimmy Novak’s stolen voice cracking under his wonder. He can’t help but feel that it is wrong to be in his Father’s presence in a body that isn’t his own.

“I’m not going to let you die,” God says. “I believe you deserve to go back.”

“As an angel,” Castiel says, hope fluttering wildly within him at the pleased way God says it. “Father, I—”

“You have a choice,” God says, cutting him off as He holds out the apple. It shines in the sun streaming down from the too-bright sky, and Castiel understands it is a promise of falling. “‘By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you shall return.’ Or,” He says, and He quirks a smile that reminds Castiel of the prophet. “Or you may return to Heaven and rebuild. They will need leadership, now that Michael is gone, and I fear that Raphael will not be able to lead the Host of Heaven on his own.”

“You’re not coming back,” Castiel realizes, throat suddenly dry and the excitement sucked out of him. God shakes His head.

“I don’t know,” He says.

Castiel closes his eyes against the regret lining his Father’s face. “I will do as You command me, Father. I will—always do as You command.”

“But you haven’t,” God says, voice closer now, and Castiel’s eyes snap open to see him standing so close. “I am proud of you for that, Castiel. You did what you believed was right.” He takes Castiel’s hand from his side and presses the apple into Castiel’s palm. Castiel expects there to be a feeling of power beneath God’s skin, but there is nothing except the sensation of brushing another human hand. Castiel’s fingers curl around the apple as he searches God’s face for a clue what he’s supposed to do.

“As I understand it, you have a human back on Earth who loves you almost as much as he loves his own brother,” God says softly. “You love him back.”

Dean.

Castiel ducks his head. “I don’t understand what You want, Father,” he says, frustrated. “You tempt me just as Lucifer tempted Eve with an apple, yet—”

“Castiel, I am not casting you into damnation,” God interrupts, laughing. “I am giving you another choice, not unlike the ones that have led you here, and now what happens is up to you. You have nothing but freedom ahead of you. The apple, it’s just...symbolic. It brings the story full circle.”

Looking from the apple to his Father, Castiel says, “If I eat this, eventually I will die.”

“Angels are not made to die, Castiel.”

Castiel finishes, “But humans are.”

God nods, looking at Castiel with love in His eyes. “I have an ending to write, Castiel. The Winchester Gospel is nearly complete, and I have to attend to it.”

Castiel looks speculatively at the apple, considering. “I could not eat this,” he says, sounding the words out loud. “I could not eat this and remain an angel on Earth. You wouldn’t stop me.”

God flat out grins at Castiel, radiant and bright as he nods. “I would not. If you wanted, you could even stay in this garden forever, locked outside of time in your own world, Castiel. You see how freedom works—once you have it, you can choose anything.”

“I don’t want to disobey You,” Castiel says nervously, shifting his weight around.

Shrugging, God says, “I have no orders for you. It is not disobedience so long as no one gives you a path.”

It’s true, Castiel supposes. He has disobeyed every step of the way to get to this point, but now the only wrong he can do is to himself.

“I don’t know what to do, Father,” he admits, turning the apple over in his hands. “I fear I will not make the right choice.”

“You will,” God says, and in the space that Castiel takes to blink, He disappears.

\---

In the moment as Castiel’s fingers press against Dean’s face, he feels everything—all the atoms that make up Dean’s body and the soul within it, scarred and beautiful. On instinct, Castiel searches for that thread of himself he left with Dean when he raised him from Hell, hoping against all odds that there’s still something there even when he knows there won’t be.

He erases the handprint because it doesn’t mean anything without the grace inside it.

Bringing back Bobby Singer is nothing like bringing back Dean Winchester. Bobby doesn’t fight, for one, just comes back to life and his body as if nothing ever happened, completely unlike the way Castiel dragged Dean kicking and screaming out of Hell. It’s easier to do it this way, but Castiel aches for the time when he knew his plan of action.

He wants to ache instead for a time when he did not love Dean and his job was simple, but that time doesn’t truly exist because Castiel has always loved him. He has guarded Dean from birth, guarded his ancestors even longer, and now, the sight of Dean with his face swollen from their brothers’ fists still fresh in his mind, Castiel knows that he cannot guard Dean anymore. This, here, with Sam gone, means that Dean is alone and Castiel has not done his job, letting the most important thing in Dean’s life fall into the pit with Lucifer trapped inside him.

His choice is obvious, suddenly. The apple sits heavy in the pocket of his trench coat, and Castiel brushes the back of his hand over the lump as Dean asks him if he is God. It’s flattering that he could think so.

Castiel stands back while Dean and Bobby say words to each other over where the hole to the pit closed up. Dean is composed when he turns around, but Castiel can see that his eyes are rimmed with red and there are barely dried tear tracks still running down his face.

“You best call me, boy,” Bobby grunts, hauling Dean in for a hug. “Don’t you dare disappear on me.”

“Of course, Bobby,” Dean says, honest-sounding enough, but the way he holds onto the hug just a little bit longer than he normally would is a dead giveaway. “You take care.”

Bobby turns to look at Castiel one last time before he leaves. Castiel can’t decipher the exact look on his face, but he seems resigned, not quite angry or happy as he starts his truck and throws it into reverse.

He and Dean watch it leave.

“C’mon, Cas,” Dean says, pulling the Impala’s keys out of his pocket. “Let’s hit the road.”

\---

Sitting in the car with Dean now feels like all of the other times Castiel has ever sat in the car with Dean. It’s slow, slower now that he can feel his wings twitching against his back, and loud when Dean cranks up the radio to drown out his thoughts.

Dean never asks him to stay. Castiel doesn’t hold that against him—he understands that Sam is Dean’s entire life, that Dean feels more than worthless knowing that Sam has died on his watch. He can never begrudge Dean his brother.

It still hurts. It stings like—well, like a motherfucker, as Dean would say, and Castiel wishes he could change this, but he’s figured out there are some things he cannot fix. He can’t erase Hell or the parts of Dean that make him hate himself. His morals, his virtues, they don’t mean anything in the grand scheme, because there is no virtue that covers the feeling of loving a man so wholly that it could make an angel fall from Heaven.

That’s why he doesn’t really say goodbye. It’s easier to leave without it, without a final scathing look from Dean that inadvertently blames everything that has happened on Castiel. Dean is angry; that’s understandable. It doesn’t mean Castiel has to suffer for it.

Maybe they’ll meet again. Castiel can’t imagine never speaking to Dean again, on Earth or in the afterlife, however it works out. This isn’t the end, here; it’s a beginning of something different. It’s the beginning of a time where Castiel no longer has to resist the want to lean in and softly kiss Dean’s cheek, if only because Dean will no longer be around. It’s not better, like he told Dean, it’s not worse. It’s just more of the same in a different setting.

This time the setting is Heaven, where Castiel tosses his apple into the air and destroys it without a second thought. This time, Castiel is not here to take orders or to attempt to escape, partially human, with only half of his grace still intact. He is here to rebuild. If Dean calls him, he will go to him; if Castiel wants to speak to him, he will go to him. Until then, Castiel will do his best to mend his broken heart.

They are the man who held the world on his shoulders and the angel who fell to save him. It isn’t the story his Father planned, this grand story of family and rebellion that they’ve written instead, but just because it’s grand doesn’t mean it has to have an ending in paradise. They’ve proven that.

It just happens, sometimes, that love isn’t enough. And that’s okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the month’s absence. I won’t bother explaining—it’s long and boring and filled with too many excuses. I’m sad to finish this. Now that it’s done, it’s over, and I hope to god you’re not praying for a sequel because the sequel is seasons six, seven, and eight of Supernatural. That was my goal the whole time, to weave another story in and out of the one we already had, and other than a few relatively minor tweaks to canon, I think I did alright.
> 
> Beyond that. I want to thank every single reader, reviewer, and person who clicked on the first chapter and was immediately turned away by the sheer amount of gore (I can see them in the hit counter). I want to thank Rose for editing the first half or so of this fic before I started cranking chapters out two hours before posting. Everyone who has spoken to me about this or silently appreciated it from afar deserves a thanks.
> 
> This is the single longest thing I’ve ever written. It’s also the most complete. It’s not perfect. I’m still really fucking proud. Currently, I’m batting around three major ideas for my next story. Not sure what I’ll pick quite yet, but I’ve got some interesting ideas.
> 
> You can follow me on tumblr to see my spastic blogging slash crying-over-fictional-characters and participate in fun things like Smut Sunday where I write you all smut for a day. My URL is abaddonless dot tumblr dot com.
> 
> And finally, again, thank you. Thank you so, so fucking much. You’re awesome.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [That Same Holy Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142978) by [thetrueliesofafangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetrueliesofafangirl/pseuds/thetrueliesofafangirl)




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